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  THE ETHICS OF
  HERCULES




_SOME BORZOI TEXT BOOKS_


  SOCIOLOGY AND POLITICAL THEORY
  _Harry E. Barnes_

  THE ORAL STUDY OF LITERATURE
  _Algernon Tassin_

  THE BASIS OF SOCIAL THEORY
  _Albert G. A. Balz_

  ESSAYS IN ECONOMIC THEORY
  _Simon Nelson Patten_

  THE ETHICS OF JOURNALISM
  _Nelson A. Crawford_

  THE TREND OF ECONOMICS
  _Various Writers_

  AN ANALYSIS OF WRITING
  _Harold P. Scott_




  THE ETHICS OF
  HERCULES

  _A Study of Man’s Body as the Sole
  Determinant of Ethical Values_


  BY
  ROBERT CHENAULT GIVLER, PH.D.
  _Professor of Philosophy in Tufts College_


  [Illustration: Decoration]

  NEW YORK ALFRED · A · KNOPF MCMXXIV




  COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

  _Published, March, 1924_


  _Set up, electrotyped, and printed by the Vail-Ballou Press, Inc.,
    Binghamton, N. Y._
  _Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York._
  _Bound by H. Wolff Estate, New York._

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




  DEDICATED

  TO

  THE THOUSAND MEN

  OF MY GENERATION

  WHOSE THOUGHT I HAVE THE HONOR

  OF MAKING ARTICULATE.




  “_Waste not free energy; treasure it and make the best use of it._”
  WILHELM OSTWALD, “_The Imperative of Energetics_.”




PREFACE


This book deals with ethics as a strictly natural science, and
particularly as a branch of mechanistic psychology. It regards the
realm of ethics as coterminous with the arena of human activity, and
holds that the problems of conduct, being exclusively man’s problems,
are to be solved by the methods of applied science. Moreover, since
human conduct is in the last analysis dependent upon the postures and
manœuvres of our muscle-fabric, he who would understand ethics must
first comprehend something of the mechanics of the human organism.
Indeed, this book attempts to show, not only that ethics and
physiology can no longer be studied apart from one another, but also
that it is the structure and functions of the human body which have
determined just what our ethical values are.

Such a program is not strictly original, for the student of
philosophy will readily find its antecedents. Nevertheless, while
many ethical writers have heretofore given numerous intimations of a
mechanistic scheme in ethics, yet usually as they proceed to discuss
what are called higher things, they seem to forget that it is the
human body which performs every human action, even those deeds which
move us most profoundly. No such faltering, we trust, will be found
in these pages. Indeed, it may be stated at the outset that one of
the fundamental conceptions from which this book originated is that
the well-being of the physiological organism is the final criterion
of whatever is ethically valuable.

The title, “The Ethics of Hercules,” is doubly symbolical. Those
who have heard of this ancient hero will immediately recognize the
emphasis which is placed upon that type of personality who with
strength, skill, and persistence works out the problem that lies
nearest at hand. Moreover, Hercules the valiant, the thoroughbred
who never once shirked from his task, is here contrasted with
Cinderella, the patron goddess of all those ineffectual dreamers,
who, instead of balancing their ethical books day by day, whimper
after the supernatural, and cultivate an inner life of subterfuge and
disorder. We hold here that no man can have freedom given to him,
but that he must earn it by positively constructive, honest efforts
to adjust himself to and gain control of his environment. The motto
of Cinderella is, “Where you are not, there is happiness,” while the
motto of Hercules is, “Friends lost, something lost; honor lost, much
lost; pluck lost, all lost.”

The realization that in all science many false starts are made before
a single true one is achieved, makes for caution and vigilance.
Seeing, however, that the trend of ethical thought has been
continually growing more and more mechanistic, it seems not unlikely
that we are at the beginning rather than at the end of a chapter in
the empirical science of human nature. If this book utters no more
than the first sentence of that chapter, the effort will not have
been in vain.




CONTENTS


     I. INTRODUCTION                                                 3

    II. A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE ANTAGONISM
        BETWEEN ALL SUCH WORDS AS
        “GOOD” AND “BAD,” AND “RIGHT” AND
        “WRONG”                                                     12

   III. THE BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICATION OF THE
        WORD “GOOD”                                                 36

    IV. THE ACTION-PATTERNS IMPLIED BY THE
        WORD “BAD,” WITH A NOTE ON THE PHYSIOLOGY
        OF “EVIL”                                                   58

     V. “RIGHT” AS A GESTURAL SIGN                                  75

    VI. THE MEANING OF THE WORD “WRONG”                            116

   VII. “VIRTUE” AND “VICE” AS FUNCTIONS OF THE
        ORGANISM                                                   127

  VIII. IS CONSCIENCE ALWAYS A PATHOLOGICAL
        PHENOMENON?                                                155

    IX. THE MITIGATION OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN
        FREEDOM AND OBLIGATION                                     175

     X. THE ACQUISITION OF AN ETHICAL TECHNIQUE                    189

        INDEX                                                      203




  THE ETHICS OF
  HERCULES




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


It would be an impertinence for an amateur in physiological science
to assert that the significance of ethical values can be understood
only through a study of the mechanics of the human body, were not
the ethical implications of physiology so numerous, so compelling,
and so plainly apparent. Ever since anatomists and physiologists
first began to demonstrate that all the vital functions of man
were dependent upon his intimate structure; and more recently that
conduct and thought are in the strictest sense of the term functions
of man’s flesh, they have been laying the foundations,—even if
unconsciously,—of a scrupulously natural science of ethics. The
purpose of this book is to attempt the formulation of such a science.

There is little need to state that any proposal to deal with ethics
in a thoroughly naturalistic manner will be met with considerable
resistance. Although it has been everlastingly recognized that
human conduct is the direct product of human bodies, especially
as is evidenced by our bestowal of rewards and punishments on
individually specified persons, nevertheless, the opinion still
widely prevails that a man and his actions are two such different
things that the former cannot be defined in terms of the latter.
Against this naturalistic or mechanistic view,—that a man _is_ what
he _does_,—several classes of people tenaciously hold contradictory
opinions.

There are, for example, those who consider ethics as the humble
handmaid of what is curiously termed “revealed religion,” and who
consequently hold that all the knowledge necessary for the conduct of
life has long ago been vouchsafed us by Infallible Wisdom. To such
persons it is of no importance that human nature has actually altered
to such an extent as to make it necessary to find new solutions
even for ancient problems; nor does it seem to occur to them that
the homage devoted to the past may often be simply a pleasant way
of escape from the intellectual responsibilities of the present. A
mechanistic ethics plans to undermine the notion that the ethical
truth of one generation is necessarily sufficient for the problems of
the generation that succeeds it, and aims to supersede it with the
view that man’s progress is dependent, not upon his ability to escape
from his problems, but rather upon his ability to analyse and solve
them.

Again, there are those who regard ethics solely as a subject for
philosophical discussion on the basis of an ideal never illustrated
by any one man, but only conceived in abstract terms. “How should
the ideal man behave?” is the sole burden of their discussion.
Even the mechanist hesitates to condemn this esthetic attitude
toward conduct too severely. For it is well known that thinking may
involve preparation for action, and that consequently he who thinks
out the best course of conduct in advance may be more likely to
act accordingly when a real problem is to be solved. On the other
hand, the human body and brain are so constructed that all fanciful
romancing is necessarily tinged with delusion to such an extent that
he who conceives an ideal apart from the actual is bound to lose
his orientation. And the sequel of this loss is everywhere manifest
in purely philosophical discussions about ethics. In the effort to
extricate themselves from the verbalism in which they are entangled,
ethical theorists have invariably either rejected the world as evil,
or else they have dug themselves in under a mountain of meaningless
words. To all such persons a mechanistic ethics seeks to restore a
glimpse of the reality they have sought in vain, by showing that the
highest ideals need not be in any way fictitious.

Resistance to a naturalistic ethics may also be expected from those
biologists and physiologists who regard the human body essentially as
a corpse animated by a psyche. These people are known as vitalists,
and their number is very great. The customary gloom of these men is
doubtless derived from their attitude toward the human body, which
they know best either in the form of specimens preserved in alcohol,
or microscopic slides of slaughtered tissue. Now, to be sure, such
objects of intense study do not of themselves yield an adequate
picture of a living, thinking man. But these morphologically-minded
persons, instead of pertinaciously remembering what manner of
organism they have slain for research, and instead of keeping ever
in mind that all human tissues actually die while performing their
normal functions, deem it somehow necessary to postulate a vital,
that is, an immortal principle, which makes the organism _go_. A
more perverse logic does not arise even in the realms of theology.
Oddly enough, the conversation of these men is not so happy as
their metaphysic might indicate. “No, no,” they will repeat in a
plaintive outcry, “you can never find the secret of life.” The
sentiment underlying such a remark is not difficult for even a casual
student of psychology to detect. Moreover, logicians know that when
a man states a problem in terms of a mystery, and seeks thereby to
hinder the search for its solution, he commits an error which has
been called “the fallacy of initial predication.”[1] Obviously,
indeed, we have already found out fully a thousand of the secrets
of living matter,—for instance, its principal chemical ingredients,
its dependence upon oxygen, its optimal temperature, its rate of
dying with different vital organs removed, and the like,—and so when
a vitalist speaks of “_the_ Secret of Life,” he simply shows that
he is still a worshipper of magic. Although the way of intellectual
progress lies in another direction, yet, since the majority of
mankind court mystery as a way of escape from the “despotism of
fact,” the vitalist can be expected to lead a voluble resistance
against a mechanistic ethics. Nevertheless, even he can perhaps be
induced to recognize that although Psyche does seem to regulate Homo,
yet it is always the structure of Homo that determines what manner
of function he shall manifest. And if the mechanist can elicit this
admission from the vitalist, he can at least maintain his chief
contention. Otherwise, seeing that the mechanists are on the whole
younger men than the vitalists, nature’s own slow processes will have
to soften the asperities of this conflict.

Having thus begun our outline of a mechanistic ethics by stating the
chief points of its disagreement with certain traditional ways of
thinking, let us now proceed to establish without interruptions the
foundations upon which this science of human conduct is to be built.
And first a word as to its antecedents.

All modern scientific thinking, which is essentially a pertinacity of
attention,—a dogged following upon a clue sagaciously intuited,—is
our heritage from ancient Greek thought, and particularly from
Socrates. And it is quite a significant, though oft-forgotten fact,
that while almost all our scientific inquiry has been directed
toward the conquest of physical nature, Socrates himself scorned to
devote his powers to any but the subjects of ethics and the theory
of knowledge. It is, then, something like a return to the chief
interest of Greek life to employ the methods of general science
in the analysis of the ethical problem. “Know _thyself_” was the
well-known motto of Socrates; but it has required an infinitude of
other knowledge before we could see clearly enough to know ourselves.
Nevertheless, we may now say that in thus employing modern science
strictly in the interest of ethics, the homage to Socrates is no
less profound than the implied confidence in the trend of that
civilization which originated in his brilliant mind.

The antecedents of a naturalistic ethics, however, are not all
located in one man. With varying emphases, we find similar tendencies
appearing in Aristotle, in Leonardo da Vinci, in Hobbes, in Spinoza,
in John Stuart Mill, in Herbert Spencer, and in many other wise and
kind men. Today this same influence is more aggressive and expanding
than ever before. Lucien Levy Brühl, Edwin Holt, John Dewey, William
Morris Davis, George Clarke Cox, and Roy Wood Sellars are typical
representatives of the movement devoted to making ethics as objective
as the science of mechanics. Consequently it would seem that the
attempt we shall make here to define ethical values in terms of man’s
biological functions is not a forlorn hope, either historically
unforeseen, or lacking contemporary sympathizers.

What, then, is implied by the statement that ethical values are to be
defined in terms of man’s biological functions? In the first place,
we imply that just as man’s body, by means of brain, sense organ,
muscle and gland, makes, upon stimulation, all the mind it ever
manifests, so likewise that same body of man, through the mechanisms
just enumerated, creates ethical notions. That is to say, the realm
of ethics is coincident with the realm of human behavior in so far as
that behavior is judged to be good or bad, right or wrong, virtuous
or vicious. Now the body of man performs many and various functions,
some of which are called physical, some chemical, some mental, and
some ethical; and any structure of man’s body, such as an arm or a
leg, can be shown to perform all these four types of function at the
same time. Such a statement will cause no surprise to those who have
followed the trend of psychological and ethical theory in the last
decade. And while it is obviously impossible to prove any theory to
the negatively suggestible obstructionist, it is a very hopeful sign
that today great numbers of even untutored men are disbelieving in
the transcendence of mental and ethical qualities, and are relocating
them among the natural phenomena of the world. Hereafter, then, we
shall also understand ethical values to be achievements of man’s
mind, which is a function of his protoplasm, which is a function of
the sun.

A second implication of our basic assertion is that since our
knowledge of man has, after a hundred false starts, just recently
become in any way accurate, so must our views on ethical questions be
regarded as still in the infancy of their truth. Moreover, just as
scientific inquiry in every other field is subject to revision upon
each new discovery of signal importance, so must ethical science,
during the period of its infancy, be subject countless times to an
equally sweeping revision. In other words, the scientific attitude
toward ethics forestalls any attempt or wish to draw on some
phantom bank account to eke out the ethical resources of mankind,
insufficient though such resources may at times appear to be. He
who, like the mechanist, believes that virtue is a strictly natural
phenomenon, must not carry a-priori standards into his work, but must
believe that an accurate description of human nature will furnish
all the necessary data for an applied science of human conduct. To
be sure, since man is a creature who likes and dislikes, who prefers
and rejects, this very fact precludes an ethics without any mention
of ideals of one sort or another. Nevertheless, it is our particular
business here not to establish or insist on any set of ideals in
advance of an empirical study of human conduct, for it may well be
that what we call our highest ideals are, in the light of science,
in need of considerable revision.

With this by way of introduction, we shall at once proceed with
the work already proposed. And just as a new proprietor of an old
business begins by taking inventory, so shall we at once take stock
of the ethical resources of man. Our method for the time being will
be the method of the statistician. Following the arrangement of
our data as we find them, we shall first seek to answer that most
interesting and, indeed, fundamental question, namely, Why do our
ethical judgments always occur in pairs of antonyms? This enquiry
will bring us to the very center of the ethical problem. Next we
shall ask just what our ten principal ethical concepts really mean,
and shall seek to discover their relationships to one another.
Finally, we shall endeavor to show how the knowledge thus derived,
when combined with insight into the mechanics of body and mind,
furnishes us with an ethical technique which transcends both in scope
and effectiveness all that we have hitherto possessed.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] R. B. Perry, “Present Philosophical Tendencies,” p. 127.




CHAPTER II

  A PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN ALL SUCH
  WORDS AS “GOOD” AND “BAD,” AND “RIGHT” AND “WRONG”

    “A word is the shadow of an act.”
                         DEMOCRITUS.


It is a fact of the greatest significance that the words by which we
convey our ideas of value always occur in pairs, one of which is the
opposite of the other. In esthetics the beautiful is contrasted with
the ugly, and the charming with the disgusting; in logic the true
clashes with the false, and in philosophy the real with the unreal;
in matters of public and private economy the cheap is antithetical to
the expensive, and the generous to the miserly; while in ethics we
constantly hear the words good and bad, right and wrong, virtuous and
vicious employed to denote the opposition and contradiction of human
interests and ideals. What is the ultimate reason why we thus employ
such pairs of antonyms in our judgments of praise or blame, our
expressions of desire or aversion, and in our estimations of merit or
defect?

This modern question, upon which the founding of a true science of
ethics depends, cannot be answered by any appeal to the speculative
metaphysics of bygone generations. We have passed out of that
period in which men were content with an explanation based on the
Zoroastrian hypothesis of a world divided between the warring forces
of light and darkness, while our ears are now equally unresponsive to
the bi-polar principles of love and hate which Empedocles propounded.
Even our recent Emerson’s “Law of Compensation,” born though it was
of canny, scientific thinking, is not marked by the least sign of
that finality which the answer we seek should possess. It is, indeed,
our conviction that the presence of antonyms in human speech is not
to be accounted for by the assumption of a theory concerning the
world as a whole, but rather by an examination of some of the baldest
facts of our everyday experience. Nay more, it is our declared
purpose to show that the metaphysical and theological notions of
Empedocles and Zoroaster are themselves to be explained by reference
to the physics and the physiology of man,—in terms of the structure
and functions of the human body. But before we can comprehend the
significance of such a thesis, it is first necessary to understand
some of the physiological mechanisms underlying thought and speech.


_The Rise of Mechanistic Psychology_

Ever since William James employed the phrase “the _stream_ of
thought” to describe mental phenomena, the whole trend of
psychology has been altered. Not only did the wide-spread use of
that phrase result in the giving up of many traditional beliefs in
regard to things mental, but it also stimulated the most profitable
investigations in psychological science. One of the most ancient of
the beliefs which it demolished was the belief in Ideas as eternal,
external, and immutable. According to the notion of a stream of
consciousness (itself a variable conception), ideas are sensory
images which show individual variations, which never are exactly
repeated, and which have meaning only when they refer or lead to
some concrete reality. This view, which finally replaced the ancient
Platonic conception, is now held by practically all psychologists.
Moreover, the influence of James’ teaching was such as to show that
will, intellect, feeling, and the like were not separable parts of a
mind (i. e., faculties) which were capable of acting independently,
but were merely handy words to indicate the various qualities
of the stream of thought. The stream flows swiftly,—call that
impulsiveness; it flows again broadly and deeply with many glancing
eddies,—call that deliberation; it flows once more with swift descent
and foam,—call that strong feeling. Nevertheless, the stream of
thought is one stream, and mental phenomena one and all specify its
labile and fluid consistency. And now let us see to what further
developments this striking conception has led.

Obviously, the astute, enquiring person at once asks, “What makes
this stream of thought? To what is its flowing character due?” At
first it might seem that one must despair of any satisfactory reply.
One feels as did William Harvey, almost hopeless in his quest after
the secret of the circulation of the blood. But just as Harvey boldly
experimented with his eye on the critical features of his problem,
so have a multitude of keen investigators devised test after test to
discover the laws of mental phenomena. And while we cannot yet say
that “Science has laid her doomful hand” upon all of the intricate
secrets of mind, nevertheless, it is becoming more and more certain
that the stream of thought is just as much a bodily function as
is the breath-stream and the blood-stream. Strangely enough, this
conception is not brand-new. It was Aristotle who said, “If the eye
were an organism, vision would be its soul.” Similar thinking is
revealed in our modern view that mind is a function of the body, and
that it depends upon the body for its existence. It “is generated
by the body as the result of its immediate contacts with the
environment, in much the same way as electricity may be generated by
a turbine that has been placed in the midst of a tumbling waterfall.”
Moreover, the stream-like character of thought, the play of feeling,
the linger and strain of deliberation and expectation are due to the
manner in which the storage battery of the brain releases energy, and
to the way in which the muscles and glands transform it. William
James wrote in 1890, “All consciousness is motor,” that is, it is
dependent upon the expression mechanisms of the body; and today we
have demonstrated the fundamental rôle of the muscles and glands of
the body in “the transformation of the common energies of nature into
the special energies of mind.”

It can be seen at once that such a philosophy of mind furnishes the
most striking and far-reaching ethical implications. If what we call
our mental life turns out upon close inspection to be dependent upon
bodily functions, it follows that conduct and thought differ only in
the degree to which the body is excited to activity (molar motion).
In a word, conduct is overt (visible), while thought is covert
(invisible), behavior. Edwin Holt, in the “Freudian Wish,” speaks
of thought (‘wish’ as he terms it there) as “_a course of action
which the living body executes or is prepared to execute with regard
to some object or some fact of the environment_.” (pp. 56-7.) John
Dewey voices a similar tendency in his “Human Nature and Conduct”
when he says that _bodily habits do our thinking_. (Italics mine.)
“The habit of walking is expressed in what a man sees when he keeps
still, even in dreams.” (p. 37.) Thus the old idols are tumbled to
the ground. Over the doorway of the Germanic Museum at Harvard is
the inscription: “Es ist der Geist der sich den Koerper baut.”
Complete reversal of such an animistic and subjectivistic sentiment
is proposed by Dewey when he declares that a man stands erect, not
because he wills to, but because he can. His willing is the result,
and not the cause, of the muscular contractions which elevate the
chest and keep it convex. The old dualism of mind and body, and the
older superstition that mind rules matter, have both received their
death-blows. In their place a complete mechanistic philosophy is now
securely enthroned. It would thus seem likely that a _natural history
of virtue_ will not long hence be written.

Of all the vexed questions which psychologists have had to answer,
perhaps none is more difficult than the question as to the place
of language in the mental economy. What is language for? How did
it originate? What is its relation to thinking? To overt activity?
It is at once apparent that the answers to these questions are
highly important to ethics, since the words good and bad, right and
wrong, and the like, play such a prominent rôle in our judgments
upon our fellow-men. Neither does it seem possible to understand
why we employ these pairs of antonyms until we know what the single
terms of the pairs signify. And while it will require several of
the following chapters to give a satisfactory answer to some of the
above questions, it is readily agreed that our judgments of value
are employed principally for two purposes:—(1) to sort out some of
the objects of the environment, e. g., by calling these _good_ and
those _bad_, etc., and (2) to indicate to other persons what kind
of behavior is to be expected of us with regard to the objects thus
designated. That is our common experience. If a man calls a shop a
_good_ shop, his future behavior toward it can be predicted. If he
calls his neighbor _vicious_ he can be expected not to leave his
wheelbarrow or his lawn-mower out at night. Moreover, if we know what
sort of things a man calls bad, virtuous, or right, his whole social
philosophy can be plotted from the data provided by these particular
judgments. To state it briefly, speech becomes an instrument for the
transmission of _meanings_. Before we proceed further, let us see
just what this involves in terms of bodily mechanisms.


_A Mechanistic Interpretation of the Meaning of Words_

To the superficial observer of a man who declares that something is
cheap, or beautiful, or good, the sight of his lips moving and the
sound of the words as they are produced might appear to be the whole
phenomenon. Nevertheless, if anyone were to look carefully behind
the scenes of this performance, one would find a much more elaborate
play being enacted than is apparent on the surface. Just as we know
now from the findings of the physiologist that when the eye _sees_,
far more structures than the retina are affected, and just as we
are now certain that when the ear _hears_, many more organs than
the ear-drum and cochlea take part in the response to the stimulus,
so we are convinced that when the words we speak have a meaning, a
neuro-muscular drama of a very elaborate character is being silently
performed within our skin.

Novelists and story-tellers of all ages seem to have intuited this
truth in their portrayal of human emotions. They speak of “pent-up
anger,” of “stifled sorrow,” and they describe often in minute detail
the course of a passion that in seeking to get adequate expression
causes the face to flush, the hand to clench, or the body as a
whole to be violently agitated. The Iliad and the Odyssey abound in
descriptions of this sort, and every novelist since the days of Homer
has felt the need of such portrayals in order to make his characters
understood. Indeed, the cultivation of this technique is the essence
of dramatic art. But mark, that such emotions are aroused not only
when a person is confronted by the physical facts of battle, murder,
or sudden death, for example, but also _by the bare mention of the
words or phrases_ which appropriately describe such catastrophes. The
more carefully such a person is observed, the plainer will it become
that the agitation which his body is covertly manifesting would, if
it were unhindered in its free expression, result in an elaborate
pantomine appropriate to the events described by the story-teller.
In other words, the emotions which a thrilling narrative arouses
are substitutes for the overt activity which the auditor might be
expected to manifest were he actually a participant in the scene
described. When, then, we say that a dramatic situation _moves_
us, the description is absolutely accurate. Indeed, from the most
credible scientific evidence we possess, the emotions which are thus
aroused are characterized by all the organic stresses and strains
which are present in the most violent overt activity of which we
are capable. We inwardly writhe and tussle, we half-start one kind
of positive behavior, only to find it checked by the initiation of
its opposite,—in a word, we display on a small scale all the conduct
appropriate to the situation. And this elaborate arousal to activity
is, we undertake to say, precisely what gives every dramatic scene or
narrative its meaning.

Dr. George W. Crile has coined the appropriate phrase
“action-pattern” to describe the mechanism involved in the cases just
cited. Crile’s “action-pattern” is, indeed, practically identical
with Holt’s “specific response,” and with Titchener’s “motor set,”
of which phrases the latter two are today familiar to most students
of psychology. Briefly, this action-pattern is simply a more or less
fixed way in which some part of the body produces a movement. It
depends principally upon the physical structure of the part, as well
as upon its muscle and nerve supply, and secondly upon the habits of
movement which external stimuli have repeatedly produced in it. Thus
every healthy leg has acquired the action-patterns of walking and
running, and some legs have in addition the patterns of kicking, or
of “stepping on the gas” in open level country. What we call the most
skilful parts of the body are those which have the greatest number
of action-patterns. The hands, lips, eyes, and tongue could on this
point be properly called the reservoirs of intelligence. Certainly in
the evolution of man they have played the strategical part. Moreover,
it is supposedly these action-patterns, these habits of movement,
which are aroused whenever we are said to remember or imagine, to
cogitate or ponder; and this is, I take it, what Dewey implies when
he says that bodily habits do our thinking. I have elsewhere shown[2]
how one action-pattern of the human hand performs yeoman service in
this respect, and it would not be difficult to demonstrate that every
action-pattern is capable of generating a multitude of thoughts.
When, then, we say that a novelist or poet has portrayed a moving,
tragic scene, we shall now understand that he has re-aroused in
us bodily habits which we started to acquire when we first became
acquainted with grief.

While we do not claim that all cases of meaning involve such
wide-spread and imperative bodily disturbances as those which occur
in connection with tragic or erotic situations, it is nevertheless
a valid inference that words which stimulate us to no activity
whatsoever mean nothing to us. Certain it is, at least, that the
more meaningful or significant any word is, the more does it stir up
latent tendencies to action throughout our whole organism. Political
and religious slogans are telling examples of this. “Great is Diana
of the Ephesians!” “Remember the Maine!” and “For God, for Country,
and for Yale!” have been for some persons phrases of the maximal
philosophic content. Moreover, the same word may arouse different
meanings (or action-patterns) in different people, depending not only
on how the word is spoken, but also on the mood of the auditor. It is
a matter of common observation that the shout of “Fire!” calls forth
by no means the same responses from an insured landlord as it evokes
from an uninsured tenant, while the mention of _water_ will stimulate
one sort of reflex action in a thirsty man, and quite another sort in
a man who has just been rescued from drowning.

It is plain, then, that if physiological science has achieved the
least light upon the problems of psychology, the meaning which any
word or phrase possesses is not something that the sound of the word
or its written symbol is endowed with, or something that filters
through from any Platonic realm of ideas, but the meaning of any word
is given to it by the person who speaks or hears it. Moreover, this
endowment of meaning is implicit in the arousal of action tendencies
at the time when the word is spoken or heard. In the example recently
cited, the word “fire” had a different meaning for the insured
landlord from what it had for the uninsured tenant because the habits
of precaution which the former had acquired established a different
motor attitude toward fire than did the procrastination of the
latter. Consequently, the shouting and the conflagration were stimuli
in the presence of which the landlord could be calm, while the tenant
could not.

The application of this principle of the dependence of meaning upon
action-patterns extends, however, to other situations than those
in which emotional riots are observable. Indeed, we undertake to
say that even such plain, concrete words as _basket_, _horse_, and
_river_ have a meaning because they arouse us to motor activities
of one sort or another. It may well be, of course, that we start
to think of a basket in terms of its color, or shape, or its cost;
and of a horse in like terms; while we think of a river only in
connection with its height during seasons of drought or flood: but
eventually the basket will, by implying _receptacle_, lead in our
imagination to the acts of filling and emptying; while the horse
will be finally pulling our loads or carrying our weight on his
back; and the river will be either waded or swum by us, or become
related to our necessities or pastimes (our habits) in some other
manner. And when we thus develop a specific action-pattern toward
such an object, we are said to know what it _means_. It has long been
a maxim in education that not until we know how to use and control
our environment, do we become fully intelligent towards it. The
theory and the fact of action-patterns gives unusual support to this
particularly profitable maxim. Spinoza laid down the principle that
the will and the intellect are one and the same, and this principle
too has complete verification from mechanistic psychology. Thought
is dependent upon bodily activity, and it does not matter for our
present purpose whether that activity be overt or subtly concealed.

The question now arises: Does the meaning of abstract terms, of the
terms we use in our judgments of value, consist in the same kind of
motor tendencies as those which are aroused by concrete terms? From
the following considerations I believe we can say that it does.

To begin with, abstract terms are one and all the result of the
process of abstraction. This process consists in our picking out some
common feature or quality from a great variety of objects, and giving
it a name in order to fix it in our memory. For example, fire, the
inside of ripe watermelon, and the outside of ripe cherries may all
be called _red_. The concept, or abstract term, “red” can thereafter
be used on occasion as a gestural sign for all these various
objects when their color is being signified. Moreover, the process
of abstracting these common qualities is itself a motor process. It
is, physiologically speaking, the same sort of activity as collecting
postage stamps or beetles’ wings. Indeed, the simplest perception
of any concrete object, any red object, for example, involves motor
activity of a highly elaborate character. When we look at such an
object, not only is the retina of the eye stimulated, but various
muscles and glands are simultaneously activated to an elaborate
transformation of energy. Likewise, when we hear, taste, smell, or
have any other perception, other characteristic transformations of
energy are taking place through the arousal of action-patterns.
Now we have just stated that abstract terms are derived from the
multifarious perception of concrete objects. In what, then, does the
meaning of abstract terms consist? It consists in their function of
recalling some of the particular experiences from which they were
derived. Such an abstract word as “red” has, then, a meaning for
us simply because it arouses in any of its phases that particular
action-pattern which all sorts of red things have stimulated in us.

This same principle may now be applied to show how even the meaning
which attaches to the words we employ to convey judgments of value
may be explained in physiological terms. For the highly abstract
character which the words _cheap_, _beautiful_, and _good_ seem at
times to possess is simply due to the fact that at the mention of any
such word we are simultaneously stimulated to so great a variety of
actions that we are unable to follow any one of them through to its
conclusion. When such a condition persists, the meaning is said to be
vague.

It is, of course, not to be forgotten that every time we use a word,
whether we read it, speak it, or hear it, the meaning it arouses is
traceable to the fact that firm bonds have been established between
the eye, ear, and throat mechanisms on the one hand, and related
parts of the body which are involved on the other. This union of the
reading-reflexes with the somatic-reflexes is provided for by a very
simple mechanism called the conditioned reflex. By such a device, any
two reflexes which have been aroused _together_ frequently enough by
external stimuli will ever thereafter tend to arouse each other. That
is why the word “fire” which we all were taught to use to indicate
a certain kind of object, will, even if spoken in a wilderness of
snow, make us feel some of the effects which flame once produced
upon us. Contrariwise, the blindfolded man will, by no other cue
than the touch of his fingers, name such objects as carpet, leather,
sandpaper, and nails. And from what we have already said about the
source of the meaning of abstract terms being traceable to concrete
experiences, we may now say that such words as cheap, beautiful, and
good, one and all owe their significance to the fact that they too
exhibit the law of the conditioned reflex both in their origin and in
their maturity.


_How the “All-or-none” Principle Helps to Disclose an Amazing Secret_

It being thus apparent that words possess meaning because they arouse
motor tendencies in us, let us now see what justification there
is for the assertion previously made that these motor tendencies
need not be at all visible as overt actions in order to perform
their epistemological function. This justification is found in the
all-or-none principle of nervous and muscular activity,—a principle
having the most far-reaching consequences for both psychology
and ethics. We are all familiar with the fact that less work is
involved in lifting the arm leisurely to a horizontal position than
in moving it through the same radius with a heavy weight held in
the hand. However, we are not all familiar with the fact that in
the case of the leisurely movement only a few of the myriad nerve
and muscle fibers of the arm are being innervated, the rest being
completely passive, while in the case of lifting the heavy weight,
the proportion of fully active and inertly passive fibers is just the
opposite. But this is exactly the case. According to the all-or-none
principle discovered by Lucas and Adrian,[3] whenever a single nerve
fiber functions at all, it acts in its maximum capacity. Never is
such a fiber partially activated; in its all-or-none functioning it
is as uncompromising as gravity. Consequently, even though the arm
may _feel_ uniformly flabby when it is indolently moved about, some
few of its nerve and muscle fibers are working to their limit.

This being the case, it is readily apparent that the various
qualities of muscular movement,—languid, intentional, unintentional,
or deliberate,—have one and all a strictly quantitative basis. If a
man’s smile spreads out into a grin, this change in the quality of
his countenance is caused by the simple addition of fully functioning
neuro-muscular units under the skin of his face. If the grin dwindles
to the smile, and that again vanishes into a look only faintly
reminiscent of pleasure, the opposite process of subtraction is then
taking place. Consider now the further implications of this law of
Lucas and Adrian. For the logical inference is that when we merely
_think_ of lifting our arm, but do not lift it visibly, an essential
part of the arm-lifting mechanism has been nevertheless specifically
stimulated to activity; it is only because not enough muscle fibers
have been innervated to overcome the inertia of the limb that the
arm does not rise. That is, indeed, our common experience. When we
lie abed on a cold winter morning and speculate on the question
of getting up, our imagination of the heroic deed is perfectly of
a piece with the real business of shivering on the drafty floor.
Indeed, according to the all-or-none principle, since even the
slightest neuro-muscular activity is _positive_, the terms “overt” or
“covert” as applied to action refer merely to what an observer can or
cannot readily perceive. This principle can be justly applied to the
problem of the meaning of words. The implication is sound that even
though the action-patterns which are aroused by words are unfelt by
us or invisible to an onlooker, these motor tendencies are just as
truly positive physiological events, so far as they go, as are the
most violent efforts we openly manifest. For the pattern of action is
the same; the only difference is in the number of nerve and muscle
fibers involved.

It was a motto of Jesus that “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is
he.” Although the particular phrase, “in his heart,” is now regarded
as too wild a hyperbole to be justified by the facts, yet the
all-or-none principle furnishes an unsuspected substantiation of the
essential truth of this motto with respect to certain individuals.
We have long known that thinking did somehow lead to action,—that
both the rogue and the philanthropist, the slanderer and the coquette
often schemed and planned secretly for years without giving any
outward hint of what their future behavior was to be. History is full
of the trouble caused for those who had “no art to read the mind’s
construction in the face” of him who could “smile and smile and be a
villain.” And now the secret is out why for so many centuries it was
believed that thought produced action and mind ruled matter. Thought
_is_ action, but action of so elusive a character as to be totally
beyond the unaided eye to detect; and thought “leads” to action for
the same reason that a spark can produce a conflagration and a hole
in a dyke produce a flood. In all three cases the greater effect is
due to the magnification of the exciting cause. The ancients held
that mind ruled the body for the reason that, being ignorant of the
fact of covert muscular responses, they assumed an incorporeal cause
for a series of events whose end-term alone they were able to discern
as embodied in the movements of matter.

It is thus finally apparent how by means of the law of the
conditioned reflex and the all-or-none principle, both concrete and
abstract terms serve not only as gestural signs, but also serve
to imply and predict human activities. We have shown that every
word which has a meaning _ipso facto_ implies action. It matters
not whether that action be sudden or violent, or merely one that
is carried out on “low gear,” so to speak, by the neuro-muscular
mechanisms of the body. Neither does it matter whether that action be
precise or groping, specific or diffuse; if the word has a meaning
it will be accompanied by an action-tendency, and that tendency
will be added to the kinetic potentialities,—the character,—of the
individual. For if it is the case that by the law of the conditioned
reflex, words _get_ meaning, it is equally to be asserted that by
virtue of the all-or-none principle, they _keep_ it. Moreover,
Holt to the contrary notwithstanding, it is such demonstrable
physiological principles as these, and not the mysterious Freudian
categories, which are the keys whereby the secrets of mind will be
unlocked.

Having thus dealt with the problem of how the neuro-muscular
mechanisms of the body generate and maintain the meanings of words,
let us now return to the original question of this chapter, namely,
What is the ultimate reason why we employ such pairs of antonyms as
“good” and “bad” in our judgments of praise or blame, our expressions
of desire or aversion, and in our estimations of merit or defect?
Our answer is that the felt opposition and contradiction of antonyms
is due to the conflict of motor tendencies, and in support of this
theory we cite a well-recognized physiological principle,—the law of
reciprocal innervation.


_The Physiological Explanation of the Opposition of Antonyms_

Every freely moving part of the body, such as the leg, the arm, and
the head, is equipped principally with two sets of muscles, called,
from their functions, the _flexors_ and the _extensors_. The flexors
are those muscles which for example, upon contracting, draw the
legs and the arms toward the body and fold them close to it, and
which lower the head upon the chest; while the extensors stretch out
the arms and legs, open wide the hands, and raise the head to an
erect posture. Other parts of the body are similarly equipped for
producing motions of an opposite character in the skeletal system.[4]
The eyeballs are lowered by the use of a different muscle than that
by which they are elevated; the muscle which depresses the wings of
the nose is a direct antagonist of the other muscles which control
the movements of this organ, and so on throughout the whole of our
movable bodily structures. Moreover, when one such pair of muscles is
contracted, the opposed member is normally relaxed, and vice versa;
or, as the physiologist would say, the two muscles are reciprocally
innervated.[5]

However, it must not be understood that this law refers only to
the visible contractions of the muscles which produce the overt
behavior of a man, for it equally explains the case where a very
small number of nerve and muscle fibers are activated. That is to
say, the law of all-or-none _and_ the law of reciprocal innervation
can both operate in the face or the hand at the same time. Indeed,
we must not neglect to consider that _all_ of the myriad fibers
of our largest muscles are never simultaneously contracted; rather
is it the rule that these fibers contract in relays,[6] thereby
automatically saving us from the fatigue and exhaustion which would
otherwise ensue. Moreover, the more intelligent and skilful we
become, or, as we sometimes say, the more our head saves our heels,
the fewer muscle fibers are required to generate and maintain any
specific action-tendency. Consequently, then, the law of reciprocal
innervation can be exhibited in the antagonism of extremely small
muscular units, such as we have postulated to be involved in
certain cases of meaning provided they be anatomically situated in
the correct position for producing antagonistic strains. Now the
experimental demonstration of the law of dynamogenesis at the hands
of Richet, Charcot, etc., revealed that just such slight movements of
an opposed character are produced when we merely “think” of _up_ and
_down_, _right_ and _left_, _in_ and _out_, and the like. In every
case of this sort, some part of the movable, skeletal system performs
overtly or covertly the appropriate movement, thereby giving meaning
to the word. We may therefore, unless we read all signs incorrectly,
safely affirm that whatever be the action-pattern which any abstract
term arouses in us, the antonym of that term, if indeed it be its
logical and physiological antonym, arouses action-patterns of an
opposite character.

Our physiological explanation of the meaning of words and the
contradiction of antonyms is now complete. For if, as we have
previously shown, even abstract terms acquire and keep their meaning
by virtue of the reflex tendencies which they arouse, it is likewise
apparent that the basis of logical opposition and contradiction is to
be found by an examination of the baldest facts of the physics and
physiology of the human body. In brief, then, _antonyms are those
words whose utterance stimulates us so to react as to illustrate
the law of reciprocal innervation_. And this, moreover, is the
only reason why _cheap_ is the opposite of _expensive_, _true_ the
contradictory of _false_, and _good_ the antithesis of _bad_.

Two words more, however, remain to be said. The first of these is,
that the number of pairs of antonyms we have in our vocabulary
signifies how many different pairs of antagonistic motor tendencies
or action-patterns we could, were we fully aroused, overtly
manifest. Since thought is either a rehearsal for, or a rumination
upon, action, it is essentially a process which employs the same
structures of the body as those which are activated in our buying and
selling, our giving and taking, our toil and our play. The second
word is, that if it be due strictly to our muscular architecture
that antonyms occur in human speech, we can now safely affirm that
any philosophy or religion which construes the universe as divided
between the warring forces of light and darkness, or as everywhere
illustrating the bi-polar principles of love and hate, is likewise
based upon the law of the reciprocal innervation of antagonistic
muscles. Such philosophies are, indeed, profound, since they attempt
to inscribe on the firmament the drama of man’s limitations.

With this by way of introduction, we are now prepared to examine the
various terms by which we are wont to convey our ideas of ethical
value, in order to see just what the words “good,” “bad,” “right,”
“wrong,” and the like really _mean_. And while the difficulties of
such a task are admittedly great, yet the presumption is entirely in
favor of the methods of mechanistic psychology to give a strictly
scientific interpretation to the subject matter of ethics.


FOOTNOTES:

[2] “The Intellectual Significance of the Grasping Reflex,” Jour. of
Phil., Vol. XVIII, No. 23, pp. 617-628.

[3] See “Journal of Physiology” (1909), 38, 113-133; ibid. (1914),
47, 460-474; also Bayliss, W. M., “Principles of General Physiology,”
383-4; Starling, E. H., “Principles of Human Physiology,” 205-6.

[4] Mark carefully, that according to this, so-called “voluntary”
movement (or will) is simply movement produced by one member of any
pair of antagonistic muscles. This physical equipment is of paramount
importance to the function of willing. Note also, that “free will”
always did mean the choice of two alternatives!

[5] See Bayliss, op. cit., pp. 494-8; Starling, op. cit., pp. 335-6.

[6] This is especially observable in all free-hand or free-arm
movements, as, for example, when one tries to throw missiles in quick
succession at a target. In spite of one’s own verbal suggestions,
both speed and accuracy vary with every shot. This peculiar property
of muscle should henceforth factor into our definitions of _chance_
and _luck_.




CHAPTER III

THE BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICATION OF THE WORD “GOOD”

  “... The majority attend to words rather than to things; and thus
  very frequently assent to terms without attaching to them any
  meaning, either because they think they once understood them, or
  imagine they received them from others by whom they were correctly
  understood.... Wherefore, if we would philosophize in earnest, and
  give ourselves to the search after all truths we are capable of
  knowing, we must, in the first place, lay aside our prejudices;
  in other words, we must take care scrupulously to withhold our
  assent from the opinions we have formerly admitted, until upon
  new examination we discover that they are true.” DESCARTES, “The
  Principles of Philosophy,” LXXIV, LXXV.


What do we mean by the word “good”? That is to say, how shall we
describe the action-pattern which the stimulus of this word arouses
in us? What does it mean when _we_ use it, and what does it mean to
us when _others_ employ it in their speech? Before we can answer
these questions, it is first essential to scan the list of things to
which this word is applied, for only by so doing can we identify the
term _good_ with some specific function of the human organism.[7]

Although such a task is a difficult one, the difficulty does not
appear to be insurmountable. In spite of the fact that nearly eighty
significations are possessed by this word, they will, nevertheless,
if pondered long enough, reveal some common core of meaning. And if
we now bear in mind that every such synonym implies a motor mechanism
that is developing a specific attitude toward the environment, we
shall hope to find a true solution to the problem of the meaning of
the concept “good”.

The term _good_ is used as an adjective, noun, and adverb, and
occasionally (Ex. 15) as a verb; in addition, it has sometimes an
idiomatic significance, in which case its exact status as a part of
speech is doubtful. These differences, however, need not concern
us here. _Good_ has originally an adjectival signification, and by
derivation implies _fitting_ or _suitable_. This is highly important,
for since _fitting_ and _suitable_ exclusively describe things which
help us realize our purposes, we may consider the relationship
between _good_ and human behavior to be inseparable. The type of
action-pattern implied by this word may also be faintly foreseen.

We have now the canvas stretched on which our picture of _good_ may
be delineated. Let us proceed to sketch in the first faint lines of
the picture. In the New Oxford Dictionary it is stated that _good_ is
the “most general adjective of _commendation_, implying the existence
in a high, or at least satisfactory degree of _characteristic_
qualities, which are either admirable in themselves [sic!] or
_useful for some purpose_.” This definition succeeds far better in
combining the theory of the Epicureans (good is what you like), of
the Platonists (the good is the typical), and of the Benthamites (the
good is the useful), than it succeeds in throwing a clear light upon
the question we are here attempting to answer, namely, what sort
of responses does the human organism make toward those objects and
persons which it calls “good”? From Palmer’s definition of _good_ as
“good _for_” (“The Nature of Goodness,” p. 13), we are able to derive
even less assistance, especially since it avoids the main issue in
containing the very word to be defined.

Let us now attack this problem by a new method. A survey of all
the things which this word _good_ indicates reveals not only that
it _denotes_ (or simply points out) a host of distinguishable
objects and properties, but that it also _connotes_ (or implies) an
exceedingly numerous array of human activities. And while the sum
total of all these denotations and connotations appears at first to
be an unwieldy mass, it can, I think, be suitably dealt with under
the following five classes:—

A. That which is useful, fit, serviceable, and the like, for any
purpose whatsoever. With such primitive use of the term, the purpose
involved is neither praised nor blamed. The burglar’s jimmy is as
“good” for his purpose as is an overcoat to keep out the cold. Some
ethical writers refer to this as _immediate_, as opposed to _remote_
or _mediate_ good, or as non-moral as opposed to moral good. It is
“good _for_,” without any limitations as to what the “_for_” implies.
William James might have called it “decerebrate good.”

B. That which is useful, fit, or serviceable in the sense of being
_continuously_ or _continually_ so. An extended time being here
introduced, _good_ now becomes almost synonymous with dependable.
Our concept here may refer to anything that sustains life, or
brings peace and contentment in society, and hence at one moment
it emphasizes intelligence and skill, while at another it points
directly to benevolent, spiritual, and esthetic agencies. Moreover,
it not only denotes property (Ex. 28, “goods”), but also frequently
connotes an emotional enthusiasm in the possessor of it.

C. That which fulfils expectation. This signification is sometimes
equivalent to “normal” or “typical,” which terms are also frequently
included in the connotation of “useful” and “dependable.” But here a
distinctly new factor enters into the use of this concept, namely,
the tone of voice by which the word “good” is uttered, for all
colors and shades of emotion and sentiment may be registered by this
means. Hence the concept “good” may be used to imply that which just
passably fulfils expectation, or—

D. It may be used to indicate that expectation has been greatly
and even suddenly exceeded, in which case it sometimes denotes
the presence of something which is rated far above the normal, the
immediately useful, or the mildly beneficent (thereby identifying
itself with some of the significations exhibited in Class B), or—

E. It may be merely expletive. Here the use of the term “good”
rapidly becomes exotic. It signifies only surprise, shock, or spasm.
“Good” as an expletive also becomes closely allied with “good” as an
adverb, in which case its significance as a term by which to express
a judgment of value rapidly evaporates.


  _The Results of an Experiment to Determine Which of These Five
  Classes Are Implied by the Seventy-Nine Significations of the Word
  “Good”_

The choice of these five classes was the result of a test carried
out over a period of several years. Each one of the seventy-nine
significations was printed on a separate slip of paper, and then,
first choosing one of them at random, and employing it as a tentative
standard, the points of similarity and difference between it and the
remaining significations were determined and recorded. From this
procedure there gradually arose, by differentiation and condensation,
the five classes we have just indicated, which, as may be observed,
are defined so as to include as many and to exclude as few of the
uses of “good” as possible. Had our classes been defined with too
great emphasis upon the meaning of any single term of our array, the
whole idea of a classification would have had to be abandoned.

Having thus determined upon these five classes as representative and
significant, one hundred college students were asked to ponder these
classes in connection with the subjoined array of the common uses
of the word “good,” to choose one of the classes as the one most
appropriate in each case, and then to choose as many other of these
classes as seemed to be involved, and to rank them in order of their
importance. For example, they were shown the first two terms of the
array,—(1) “Good food; fit to eat, untainted,” and (2) “Good food;
nutritious, palatable,” and were asked whether they belonged in Class
A, B, C, D, or E. It was at once seen that membership in more than
one class was implied in both cases, but it was also admitted that
nutritious and palatable food (No. 2) was a more dependable “good”
than was the food specified by example No. 1. First choices were
consequently indicated on this basis. After that, second, third, and
succeeding choices were made for Nos. 1 and 2; following which, the
remainder of the array was treated in the same manner.

The average of the results derived from this experiment indicates
that Class B (dependable “good”) has a majority of votes, it being
given first place 49 times, and a subsidiary place 75 times. Class C
was given first place 20 times, and a secondary

[Illustration:

_CHART_

_Showing the distribution of the 79 significations of the word
“Good.”_

(_Explanation in text._)


_Key_

  = _First Choice._

  = _Second Choice._

  = _Third Choice._

  = _Fourth Choice._

  = _Not Chosen._


_Classes A B C D E_] place 65 times. Class A was the first to be
implicated in 5 uses of the word “good,” and was mentioned as a
later choice 26 other times. Class D was voted to be the one most
obviously implied only 2 times, but was mentioned in an associative
relationship 59 times, while Class E, which received only one
vote, got that for first place. The importance of Class B is thus
clearly apparent. However, an almost equally significant fact seems
to be that there were only five cases in which one class alone
was implicated, whereas two classes were used in 18 cases, three
classes were used in 34 cases, and four classes were simultaneously
implicated by 20 terms of this array. The appended chart renders this
distribution and overlapping more obvious. From all this, moreover,
we seem to be warranted in inferring that, with all the unlikeness
there is between these various synonyms for “good” when taken one
at a time, when taken all together (_sub specie aeternitatis_, as
Spinoza would say) there is more of a common core of meaning in them
than one might naïvely expect. Consequently, we may safely presume
that if we can satisfactorily define any one of the preceding five
classes of “good” in physiological terms, we shall at the same time
have hinted the definitions of all the remaining classes.

In this connection one important thing must be borne in mind. Which
is, that in attempting to reach our final definition of “good” we
need only to abstract the common characteristic,—in mathematical
parlance,—the greatest common divisor of all the particular uses
for which this word is employed. Consequently the definition we are
searching for cannot be expected to have any bias toward private or
provincial conceptions of the term “good.” It must be catholic and
unpartisan.


_The Action-Patterns Implied by the Use of the Word “Good”_

We are now prepared to answer the question propounded at the opening
of this chapter: “What do we mean by the word ‘good’? That is to say,
how shall we describe the action-pattern which the stimulus of this
word arouses in us?” For if we can find out “what the organism is
doing” when its vocal organs are uttering this concept, we shall be
able to discover what the word “good” means.

It does not appear especially difficult to find what we are now
seeking. We have just given the total array of uses to which this
word is put, and we have also reduced that array to some measure of
coherence by means of our five classes. Is it not, indeed, a matter
of the commonest observation just what conduct human beings manifest
when they use the term “good” and signify thereby what is included in
Class A? It will be recalled that this class includes “that which is
useful, fit, serviceable, and the like, for any purpose whatsoever.”
Keeping our eye upon the specific behavior patterns implied by this
class of “good,” we may now venture the following mechanistic
interpretation: _When a man is ready to perform any action, he
calls anything_ GOOD _which assists or furthers that particular
action-tendency_. Or, the same thing may be conveyed in the following
words: _Any stimulus that evokes a response we are ready to make we
are wont to call good_.

Any picture of the human race that one may draw furnishes evidence
of the cogency of this definition. The child calls candy “good,”
not because he knows that sugar is muscle food, but simply because
he craves it, and sucks it in his mouth with avidity. This mode of
speech he got long ago from his parents. His wanting the candy makes
it “good” to him when he gets it, because the candy is a stimulus
that evokes a response he was ready to make. The boy of ten wants
a top that will spin like those which the other boys have, and he
calls his a “good” top, when it satisfies the action-pattern which
he has been developing. The rough youth of seventeen gives his
bullying chum a “good” punch in the eye, by which he again means
that the action-tendency he was covertly developing toward him has
been provided a chance to expand into a full excitation. The college
man of twenty-two calls a dance tune a “good” one, when, by its
rhythmic effects it induces him to caper and relax, and satisfy his
semi-sexual tendencies in public. And the old man of sixty-five
often speaks of his wife as a “good” woman, because she has always
had his dinner ready for him piping hot when, upon coming home,
his whole alimentary system was keyed up to perform elaborate acts
of chewing and swallowing. These and countless other cases, taken
from every hour of the day and night, fully support the mechanistic
interpretation which we have just given. But mark, that no question
is in place here as to whether all such persons _ought_ to use the
word “good” in such connections. The fact that they _do_ use it is,
for the present, the only essential item to be considered in an
empirical science of human conduct.

Just as when we enquired into the basic nature of antonyms, we
carried our investigation a little below the surface of the organism,
so may we here carry on a similar study to advantage. It is obvious
that the readiness with which we respond to the objects called “good”
is necessarily dependent upon the integrity of certain internal
mechanisms, which, though never observed in their uninterrupted
working, have nevertheless been deduced from a multitude of
scientific investigations. Moreover, it has been discovered that
every response we make is chiefly a function of the muscular and
nervous systems of the body. How, indeed, would a child reach out
for candy unless his arm were an extensible hinge, and how could it
be extended unless something, namely, his triceps muscle, pulled
on the radial bone, and how also could the muscle contract, unless
a motor nerve from the spinal cord were stimulated to perform this
specific activity? We do not, of course, specify that the definition
of “good” be restricted to imply only this particular set of facts,
but on the other hand we stipulate that this significant mechanism be
not lost sight of by him who seeks without prejudice to understand
how ethical concepts originate. Even more specific information than
this is now available. Any muscle that is ready to contract (or, as
the vitalist would say, to do Psyche’s bidding in attaining Homo’s
_good_) is said to be in a condition of tonus or elastic tension.
So far, then, as the muscles are concerned, the “good” of Class
A implies a normal muscular tonus, which can, under the proper
conditions, be developed into a full contraction. Physicians know
that in both of the abnormal conditions of tetanus and contractured
tonus, the organism cannot obtain some of the things which are
essential for its adaptation of the world about it. The possession of
a normal muscular tonus is, then, an ethical desideratum of no mean
importance.

Every such muscular contraction as we have just described is brought
about by means of a nervous impulse, originating at a receptor
organ, either external or internal, which impulse proceeds toward
a muscle or a group of muscles. However, this impulse (which in a
sense may be thought of as a desire on its way to fulfilment), is
often subject to a rather eventful history of interruptions before
it finally produces muscular action. Between the individual nervous
strands along the pathway of its motion the impulse may encounter
blockades, unless electrically charged particles (called _ions_)
are present at the various gaps in considerable numbers. Here again,
then, we reach a further refinement in our understanding of what one
class of “good” means. The “permeability of the synapses” (to use
a phrase descriptive of the above situation), thus becomes a large
determinant in human action. And if one of the classes of our concept
is definable in terms of actions that are facilitated, the light
which neurology throws upon ethics is not to be despised.

Our next adventure is the search for the various implications of
the term “good” as employed with respect to Class B. This class, as
previously stated, involves the general notion of _dependability_.
Things of this class are nominally useful, fit, or serviceable, not
merely with reference to the desire of the moment, but also and more
particularly they are useful for the future also. Nevertheless, this
phrase, “useful for the future,” must be taken to mean “imagined as
continuously or continually useful,” for although we commonly regard
tomorrow as a sort of package that is coming to us in the mail, it is
strictly something not yet existing and consequently unreal. Just as
William James said, “The feeling of past time is a present feeling,”
so is the feeling of dependability here to be interpreted not as a
property of objects, but as a condition of the organism. And, while
no incontrovertible evidence of the nature of such a condition has
yet been brought to light, it is directly in line with the facts as
we know them to assert that the “good” included in Class B implies
both a maintenance of muscular tone and a steady permeability of
the synaptic membranes involved in the action-patterns aroused by
the things we keep calling “good.” To which we might also safely
add, that the receptor organ requisite for initiating such an energy
transformation has also become so attuned to receiving the stimulus
as to show what the psychologists call a lowered threshold. Suppose
we now condense this whole account, and state it more pointedly
by saying that Class B refers to those objects that produce the
responses for which the organism has mobilized its maximum available
energies. Some of these dependable “goods” may thus imply habitual
responses, while others may simply imply a craving long denied its
overt satisfaction. And I doubt not that between these two extremes
every man can find his own “highest _good_.”

In passing, it might be pertinent to remark that the “good” implied
by Class B is always _life-enhancing_, were it not for the fact that
this obtrudes a standard not warranted by all users of this term. For
the snap judgment (or even the pondered conclusion) of an exceedingly
great number of people makes money the chief dependable “good,” that
of others puts friends and companions in this category, while with
fewer still knowledge is so regarded. Some of these things do not
always turn out to be life-enhancing,—time, place, circumstance, and
the ductless glands alter the assumed value of any such hypothesis.
Hence “good” has been here defined simply in terms of what the
organism is doing, and not in terms of any spurious teleological
principle. Empirical science has no books to balance. He who watches
a little closely will see that as far as conduct reveals it (which
is, indeed, very far), all sorts of things that are not particularly
life-enhancing are chosen hourly as the “highest goods” in the
sense of being greedily and furiously pursued. Sexual excitement,
drug-taking, gourmandizing, idling, and the latest styles in clothing
vie with any and all of these soberer values for first place in the
attention of numberless people. And while many a man may choose for
himself, yet none can choose for all.

Class B includes skilful and kind persons as objects to which the
term “good” is customarily applied. No new difficulties confront
our attempt to pronounce the physiological implications of our
concept as thus employed, even if we are obliged to alter to some
slight extent our previous point of view. The skilful man is
called “good” simply because he does or can mobilize his energy to
produce something which is regarded as useful, fit, or serviceable.
Likewise, the skilful or kind person is one who may be counted on
to assist in maintaining, restoring, or increasing any state of
things that is regarded as desirable. And we who employ the concept
“good” to praise or encourage such a man insinuate that the same
mobilization of energy is going on within us. Indeed, as could be
readily shown, all perceptions of persons involve an imitative or
empathic response. That is why skill and virtuosity of all sorts are
agreeable to behold. They furnish numerous outlets for subconscious
action-tendencies.

As regards Class C, the concept “good” points to “that which
fulfils expectation,” that is, the _normal_ or _typical_ thing.
These words “normal” and “typical” (“implying the existence of
characteristic qualities”) are related to the word “good” by means
of the conditioned reflex. Our experience with all such things as
motor-cars, for example, involves not only cognition, but eventually
discrimination and comparison as well. Thereafter, when we hear of a
_good_ motor-car, we think of such a one as we have been trained to
regard as capable of a certain kind of performance. The same thing
holds with respect to all other objects and persons concerning whom
we have become discriminative. “Good,” thus employed, seems to imply
that energy is being mobilized to perform selective activity, and
also that the sense organs have become specially attuned to receive
a specific stimulus. The “good” cat is not any old beast of the back
alley, but a mouser with a certain number of catches to her credit.
The “good” grocer (that is, supposedly _normal_) is one who gives
full weight and makes prompt deliveries. Moreover, there is implicit
in all such uses of this value predicate some reference to that
dependability which was discussed in connection with Class B. Here,
then, we may state that Class C implies _the mobilization of energy
for the performance of such action as will maintain our physical
or mental equilibrium_. And this, physiologically speaking, is
ultimately a matter of the progressive coordination of reflexes and
the maintenance of muscular tone.

The objects referred to by class D are those which greatly or even
suddenly exceed expectation, whence, as has been hinted before,
the signification of our concept frequently approaches that of an
expletive. Let us see what physiological mechanisms provide this
shade of meaning. It is generally realized that not only do our
successes and failures, our disappointments and satisfactions attune
our neuro-muscular mechanism to respond to the typical or normal
thing by calling it “good,” but these same successes and failures may
also whet our appetite for things which, by exceeding the average,
shall make up for those experiences which have been especially
disappointing. All normal protoplasm is insatiable for the maximum
success. And hunger of any sort, physiologically speaking, may be
described as a condition in which the motor mechanism is activated
to greater efforts than usual in order to relieve the condition of
want. Consequently, the physiological implications of the concept
“good” may be made as precise with respect to Class D as with any of
the preceding classes. The action-patterns implied by this class are
those which are exhibited by anyone when, after long privation, the
tensions he has accumulated are suddenly relieved by the appearance
of the desired stimulus. Indeed, such action-patterns may sometimes
be described as rapacity, as is illustrated in the case of our crying
out “Good!” when some misfortune has befallen a particularly annoying
prig.

The physiological implications of the term “good” as regards Class
E have already been sufficiently hinted in our delineation of that
class. Moreover, the surprise, shock, and spasm which it connotes
prevent its having an important rôle to play in our judgments of
value.

Let us now sum up and condense these several points. From the
foregoing it appears that he who uses the word “good” is at the
same time exhibiting a certain specific motor attitude toward the
environment which gives this word its meaning. As we have already
shown, the action-pattern involves the following physiological
conditions:—(1) the presence, maintenance, or even heightening of
muscular tone, (2) the permeability of the synaptic membranes,
especially of those along the motor pathways, (3) selective activity
and selective excitability, and (4) normally, the nice coordination
of the motor responses involved in overt action. This positively
responsive condition of the organism may now be expressed in simpler
words by saying that the word “good” is the sign of an _outgoing
reaction_. That is to say, in the first place, the things we call
“good” release the energy that is ready to be discharged; in the
second place, we participate more fully in that environment which
contains a “good” than in one that does not; and in the third place,
the effect of the presence of continuously “good” stimuli is to
render us more and more responsive, and to provide a wide margin of
resiliency for our organic interior.

Our definition of good in physiological terms has now been achieved.


FOOTNOTES:

[7] The following list of uses of the word “good” has been taken
from Murray’s New Oxford Dictionary, The Century Dictionary and
Encyclopedia, Webster’s, and the Standard Dictionary. From the same
sources also were derived the lists given in the following five
chapters. It should, however, be well noted that the lexicographer
rarely attempts such an analytical definition of words as we are
in search of here. He confines himself chiefly to the etymology of
a word and its synonyms, and to citing quotations which illustrate
the accepted usage of words. As a result, the man who looks into
a dictionary will increase his range of associations long before
he will be stimulated to perform that most fruitful of all mental
activities,—critical analysis.


THE USES OF THE WORD “GOOD”

  1. Good food; fit to eat, untainted.

  2. Good food; nutritious, palatable.

  3. Good medicine; useful as a remedy.

  4. Good soil; fertile, arable.

  5. Good ice; easy to skate on.

  6. Good ice; fit to dissolve in drinking water.

  7. Good ship; capable, or under sail, or expressing pride in the
  owner, or as an expression of well-wishing.

  8. Good cat; able mouser, house-broken, etc.

  9. Good child; quiet, obedient, not troublesome.

  10. Good person _for_: capable, thorough, skilful, competent,
  clever at, in concord with.

  11. “To can no good,” (colloq.); to be untrained.

  12. Good for a period of time; well able to accomplish.

  13. In good earnest; vigorously and effectively.

  14. Good king; one who fulfils his function, or is beloved by his
  subjects.

  15. To good; to improve land by manuring it.

  16. Good space or time for; available for the purpose.

  17. Good opinion; favorable or approving, laudatory.

  18. Good cry; beneficent, profitable, salutary, wholesome.

  19. Good spirits; not depressed or dejected, indicative of
  resilience or ambition.

  20. Good offices; friendly use of power.

  21. Good man; kind, benevolent, gentle, gracious, friendly,
  favorably disposed, virtuous, skilful, commendable, pious, devout,
  or religiously approved.

  22. Good season; holy days.

  23. The good book; “tending to spiritual edification.”

  24. The good God; “connoting perfection or benevolence.”

  25. Highest good; conventional phrase of philosophers.

  26. “Antonio is a good man”; reliable, safe, able to fulfil his
  engagements, financially sound.

  27. “A man of good”; of property, standing, rank.

  28. Goods; property, merchandise, wares, live-stock, cattle, etc.

  29. “A great good”; a large sum of money.

  30. To yield a good product or result; to turn to a person’s
  advantage.

  31. To the good; balance on the credit side, excess of assets over
  liabilities.

  32. “Good fors”; colloquial in South Africa for promissory notes,
  drafts, “I.O.U.’s,” etc.

  33. Good wind; favorable, not too weak or too strong.

  34. Good health; conducive to peace of mind and longevity.

  35. Good order; stable, satisfying.

  36. Good complexion; gratifying, favorable, advantageous, etc.

  37. Good face; fair or smooth, or indicating intellectual ability
  or trustworthiness of character.

  38. Good play; agreeable, amusing, skilful.

  39. Good fame; honorable, not sullied.

  40. To have a good night of it; to sleep undisturbedly and to be
  refreshed by so doing.

  41. To have a good time of it; period of enjoyment.

  42. Good will; benevolence.

  43. “Good morning”; elliptical for well wishing.

  44. “Good bye”; elliptical for well wishing at departure.

  45. To take in good part; to be somewhat pleased, or at least not
  displeased.

  46. “Good to overcome”; easy to overcome.

  47. To appear or seem good; implying various degrees of
  commendation, depending, however, upon the accent of the speaker.

  48. A good deal; an amount greater than expected.

  49. A good deal; adequate, abundant, ample, sufficient.

  50. As good as; practically or to all intents and purposes the same.

  51. To be as good as one’s word; to act up to the full sense of the
  letter or the meaning.

  52. To make good; to succeed, fulfil, or perform, carry out or
  succeed in performing.

  53. To make good; to fill up even or level.

  54. To make good; to repair or restore, to compensate for, to
  supply a deficiency, to pay a debt.

  55. To make good; to secure prisoners for the night.

  56. To make good; to prove to be true or valid, to demonstrate or
  substantiate a statement.

  57. Good for a certain amount; spoken of a person expected to pay
  or contribute.

  58. Good debts; those which are expected to be paid in full.

  59. To make one’s part good; to make a successful resistance.

  60. To become good for; to fulfil expectation.

  61. To come to good; spoken of a dream that comes true.

  62. Good birth; average or above the average, not humble or mean.

  63. Good coin; genuine, not counterfeit.

  64. Good purpose or conduct; commendable, acceptable, up to
  standard, not causing trouble.

  65. Good jest; smart, witty, typical, or even exceptional.

  66. Good right, claim, reason, plea, proposition; valid, sound.

  67. Good legal decision, or contract; valid, effectual, not
  vitiated by any flaw.

  68. To have a good mind to; to be ready to act, to have a matured
  intention.

  69. “Our good wishes go with you”; expectation of happiness or
  prosperity.

  70. For good and all; valid conclusion, finally.

  71. “Good my lord”; courteous address, deferential attitude,
  expectation of favor or esteem.

  72. Good life insurance risk; likely to live a long time.

  73. “Good men and true”; spoken of a jury that is expected to
  render a fair verdict.

  74. Good old; possibly a term of praise, or merely meaning very old.

  75. “Good words!”; equivalent to “do not speak so fiercely,” or “I
  expected kind words from you.”

  76. “The good people”; palliatory with reference to the fairies or
  witches.

  77. Good gracious! good Peter! good God!; exclamatory, possibly
  signifying the presence of something that is unexpected, which may
  be either welcome or otherwise.

  78. Good folk; used in a jocular or depreciatory sense.

  79. Goody good; mildly depreciatory of trustful simplicity.




CHAPTER IV

  THE ACTION-PATTERNS IMPLIED BY THE WORD “BAD,” WITH A NOTE ON THE
  PHYSIOLOGY OF “EVIL”

  “It is noteworthy that there has never been a problem of good,
  but always a problem of evil. Man takes the good in his life for
  granted, while he bewails the presence of evil in all its forms.
  May not reality be of such a character that evil is as natural as
  good?”

  R. W. SELLARS, “The Next Step in Religion,” pp. 153-5.


Good and bad, or good and evil, have from the most ancient times been
held to be diametrical and thoroughgoing opposites of each other. In
the system of Zoroaster this antithesis is metaphorically projected
into the remotest heavens, where Mazda, the God of Light, whose
deeds were goodness itself, endlessly strove to annihilate Angra,
the tireless perpetrator of deceit. The Christian mythologists, in a
characteristic imitation of pagan creeds, loved to imagine a final
Day of Judgment, when the mild, spotless followers of the Lamb were
to be rewarded by an eternal separation from the sooty henchmen of
Satan. Similar conceptions, though none of them nearly so poetic,
have tinged the thought of every subsequent era. Most of us are
familiar with Milton’s fabulous version of the theology of the Middle
Ages, in which God the Father is depicted as struggling against the
powers of darkness, not, however, by sending irresistible cohorts to
besiege and conquer Hell, but rather by counteracting their insidious
propaganda in the playground of Adam’s Eden. Indeed, one has but to
learn to read the simplest literature in any language to realize
how much of what is called thinking consists simply in devising
contrasts and antitheses. It is the orator’s chief _tour de force_,
the historian’s commonplace, the dramatist’s all-important method of
producing a plot, and, in fact, without it, no literature would seem
to give an adequate picture of the realities of human life. Small
wonder then, that in the philosophy of Empedocles, the world-view
of Zoroaster, and the theology of Christendom, this stereotyped
way of thinking, originating in and generated by the physics and
physiology of man’s musculature, should be manifest; or that the
common man should so readily and persistently hold to the diametrical
opposition between good and bad, and right and wrong. The law of
reciprocal innervation, being implicit in the body’s architecture, is
necessarily a basic formula for man’s thought.

Even though this be admitted, it guides us only a little ways through
the tangle of ethical problems. In the first place, no such dramatic
portrayal as, for example, that of Zoroaster,—whatever theatrical
agonies it might provoke,—has either reduced the sum of the world’s
distresses, or furnished the least insight into the nature of the
supposed opposites of goodness. For that matter, indeed, very little
knowledge of this character has arisen out of ethical debate or
speculation. The assumptions have been many, the facts few; and
usually, whenever this discrepancy has been realized, overdrafts
have been written on the phantom bank of theory with the vain hope
that by this means ethical solvency could be attained. In the second
place, it has scarcely occurred to any one to ask whether there was
not some other way of looking at the ethical problem than in this
duplex manner, for if an irreconcilable opposition in the field of
ethics is assumed as a fundamental principle, nothing but an eternal
deadlock can result in the conclusion. Now the empirical fact is that
man’s muscles (the functions of which determine his thoughts), can do
other things than oppose and counteract each other, for every day of
our lives we see these other motor activities manifested. However,
our traditional ethical theory would have it that the dilemma is
inescapable,—that things are either good or bad, or actions either
right or wrong, and people either virtuous or vicious, and that
there is no middle ground, or possibility of reconciliation. Mark,
however, that only in serious pathological cases do we observe a
complete rigidity of the body due to chronic muscular antagonisms.
Is it not therefore a valid inference that the mental rigidity
of most adherents to the bi-polar theory in ethics is likewise a
pathological sign, and, if so, are we not driven to the conclusion
that man’s traditional ethical notions are symptoms of physiological
malfunctioning?

Important as all this is, however, it cannot turn us aside from our
interest in finding out just to what an extent the word “bad” is a
real antonym to the word “good,” especially since knowledge of this
sort is first necessary before we can employ the method of science in
the service of the problems of human conduct. Let us, then, resume
our original search.

The term “bad” is a gestural sign which we employ in two different
senses,—to point out a deficiency or lack, (that is, to indicate
merely the _absence of_ good), and in a positive sense, to hint
the presence of something definitely _antagonistic to_ good. By an
analogy, if money is a good, we should call it “bad” in the privative
sense of the term for one to be without it; while it is “bad” in
the positive sense for one to be deeply in debt. But even while we
ponder these two behavior situations, they tend, at least partly, to
coalesce, very much indeed as Classes A and B of “good” merged at
times imperceptibly into one another. For if the man who is without
money, but not in debt, passionately desires to purchase and spend,
he will immediately place himself in the class of debtors, and
experience therewith the positive form of “badness,” at least so far
as his feelings of inhibition are concerned. However, just to what
an extent these two categories of “bad” may be identified cannot be
shown until we have first reviewed the separate uses to which this
term is put,[8] and have also deduced the action-patterns which it
implies.

It can be divined at once from a careful perusal of this brief array,
herewith subjoined, that the concept “bad” is, on the whole, a far
less variegated symbol than is the concept “good.” Its use is more
restricted, its connotation is less rich in variety, and, as can be
already predicted, the number of separate classes into which our
array may be distributed is fewer than was the case with the term
“good.” For while we have here hints of three classes which are,
roughly speaking, negatives of Classes A, B, and C of “good,” we have
nothing at all comparable to the negatives of Classes D and E. To
wit:—

Class A. That which is useless, unfit, unserviceable, and the like,
for any purpose whatever.

Class B. That which brings pain, discomfort, loss, or death. In some
respects this class is the negative of Class B of “good,” having the
general meaning of _undependable_. However, it is not the negative of
every shade of meaning implied by that class, as can at once be seen
when we consider that there are no “bads” which are the antitheses of
goods, that is, property. For, as we have already observed, even some
debts are _good_ debts.

Class C. That which disappoints expectation.[9] Here also the
negation is limited, for while with Class C of “good” the tone of the
voice could convey an immense variety of meanings, here no such great
array of nuances is found.

In consideration, then, of what has just preceded, we may
emphatically deny that “bad” is a true antonym of the word “good.”
Not only is this to be instantly deduced from the array of uses to
which these terms are put, but also from the contents of the five
classes of “good” and the three classes of “bad.” We shall presently
discover whether “evil,” as an adjunct of the concept “bad,” makes up
this discrepancy.

Resuming, then, our main theme, how shall we proceed to define
privative and positive “bad” in physiological terms, and by what
means shall we discover the action-patterns which are implied by the
three classes of “bad” which we have just delimited?

In general, and from the reader’s own experience, “bad” means
thwarting, inhibition, opposition, the interruption of action, the
durable dissatisfactions of life. We need, however, to come at the
matter a little more closely. In the preceding chapter we saw that
when we are ready to act, the stimulus that elicits the reaction for
which we are keyed up is called “good.” Employing the methods of
inductive science, with our eye on the behavior possibilities of the
human organism, we find the following stimulus-response situations
adequate to reveal the origin of the word “bad.”

1. When we are ready to act in some precise manner, but no stimulus,
that is, opportunity, is afforded for such action, the term “bad”
adequately describes the situation. Here it becomes a gestural sign
which may point either to the environment or to the organism. It is
for this reason that a man in debt, hungry, and in want is said to
be “in a _bad_ way”; while in his predicament counterfeit money and
tainted food would be unequivocally bad.

2. When we are ready to act, but are prevented from releasing the
energy we have mobilized because the stimulus is inadequate, and
does not call forth the exact response which we have been preparing
to make, the situation may again be described as “bad.” “That’s too
bad,” we sometimes say of a suit of clothes which, while adequately
keeping out the winter’s cold, does not quite fit the shoulders.

3. When we are _unready_, to act in a certain way, but are summarily
called upon to mobilize our energy for this purpose, the situation
is again often described as “bad.” Unexpected, excess taxes always
produce an emotional situation specifically related to this value
predicate.

4. Any inadequate response, in other words, one that is faulty,
erroneous, and the like, may be called “bad.” Sometimes, also, the
person making such a response is described by the same term.

From this it appears that the general meaning of “bad” is within
the scope of our discovery. Not only is this deducible from our
previous identification of this concept with the _useless_, the
_independable_, and with _that which disappoints_, but it is also
plainly foreshadowed by the four behavior situations we have just
described. “Bad” seems to imply that action, interest, purpose, and
the like, have been thwarted; that the organism has become a center
of inhibitions, and is in discomfort either because the energy which
it has mobilized cannot be released into action, or because demands
for such release cannot be met. Such a physiological condition is
best described as _incoordinate_. And this term covers all three of
our classes of “bad.” Moreover, by partial contrast with _good_,
“bad” implies a _withdrawing reaction_, with either a slump in
muscular tone (in which case we have _privative_ “bad”), or else a
sudden onset of unrelieved tensions—(_positive_ “bad”). Accompanying
such a condition, we may safely postulate synaptic impermeability
and inhibition, together with varying degrees of unpleasant strain
sensations. But mark, that we do not say that the “bad” is always
equivalent to the painful.

Were physiological science sufficiently advanced, it would be
possible for us to complete our definition of badness in terms of the
mal-functioning of such internal systems as the alimentary canal,
the cardiac, respiratory, and excretory mechanisms, and the endocrine
glands. Our common experience indubitably indicates that all forms
of thwarting and inhibition which prompt our exclamations, react
violently upon the internal machinery. Indeed, it is not too much to
claim that both the centrifugal and centripetal types of behavior
which are implied by the terms “good” and “bad” respectively just
as often as not have their source in the postures and manœuvres of
our organic interior. That is, brief to say, why the healthy man and
the dyspeptic, the optimist and the pessimist, will give precisely
opposite accounts of the same external world. We remarked before that
speech not only points out and distinguishes objects for us, but
also implies and predicts human activities. Our analysis of good and
bad fortifies this thesis beyond contradiction, and shows that any
value predicate that has a specific reference to the environment has
specific implications for the organism as well.


_The Physiology of “Evil”_

In some minds the term “evil” has primarily what is called a
_moral_ signification, and implies first and foremost anything
“contrary to an accepted standard of righteousness,” or anything
“inconsistent with or violating the moral law”; and consequently,
it is equivalent to the terms “sinful” and “wicked.” Let us not
meet such minds too intimately. Speaking in this fashion is not only
vague, but misleading as well. For when duly examined, almost every
so-called “standard of righteousness” becomes a totally unspecific
category of behavior, while the term “moral law” is not _law_ in
any dependable sense of the term at all. Certainly it is not a law
of nature,—of human nature,—for it does not adequately describe any
typical behavior situations. Neither is it law to a jurist, since
there is no organized force that can be brought to bear upon human
beings to compel them to obey it in their actions, much less in
their thinking. Moreover, the terms “sinful” and “wicked” are so
narrow and provincial and so exclusively employed by religionists “to
pelt their adversaries with,” that their equivalence to “evil” as
a term of value in the broadest ethical sense is, to say the least
of it, problematical. Whether unfortunately or not, none of the
purely _moral_ categories are fundamental for an understanding of
the actual behavior of human beings. Indeed, as a usual thing, they
hint uncritical and disorderly thinking in him who uses them, rather
than specify any intelligent and sympathetic appreciation of human
interests, or any analytical insight into the environment which now
thwarts and now furthers such interests.

And now to our analysis. The term “evil” is much more assertive
than is the word “bad,” and more forceful than all but a few
significations of the word “good.” It originally had the adverbial
force of _up_ or _over_, two words whose empathic significance is
worthy of remark. Today the term “evil” signifies either (a) “that
which exceeds due measure,” or (b) “that which oversteps proper
limits.” Here, then, we notice at the outset that “evil,” unlike
either good or bad, always carries with it the presumption of
standards or rules.

To a large extent the place in the language formerly occupied by
the term “evil” is now held by the term “bad.” With the reasons for
this change we are not especially concerned here, although it may be
appropriate to point out that the popularity of any term that has
been used almost exclusively by religionists for purposes of anathema
is doomed. Besides, the word “evil” calls up literary associations
which condemn it to modern minds. Such expressions as “The Evil One”
(that is, the Devil of the Middle Ages), the “evil eye” (another
outworn superstition), the “King’s Evil,” and a dozen other equally
obsolete terms have fallen into such low repute that they have
weakened, so to speak, the gestural significance of the remnants
of this concept. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there is
far more dramatic vocal quality attaching to the term “evil” than
to either of the words “good” or “bad.” Few words in the language
provide such an opportunity as does this one for the simultaneous
display of eye-, lip-, and jaw-gestures, whose combined effects are
none the less striking, no matter how empathically unpleasant they
have become. We invite you to stand before the mirror, and say the
word “evil” with clenched teeth and canines showing, and verify this
remark.

While the term “evil” is employed as an adjective, a noun, and an
adverb, we do not need to stop here to catalogue its uses under
these three headings. All we need to consider is that “evil” is an
intensification of “bad” in the positive sense of that term.[10] It
is also a forceful negative of Class B of good, in the sense that
it implies _that which actively operates to produce incoordination,
mal-adjustment, discomfort, and the like_. It will be recalled
that Class B of “good” included whatever conduced to life, health,
pleasure, and stability. On the contrary, “evil” is a gestural sign
that indicates any and all processes of disintegration, disruption,
and confusion. It at once implies something which is energetically
antagonistic to our purposes.

The definition of evil in mechanistic terms is now within our
reach. We have said before that “evil” is an intensification of the
term “bad,” which latter term was used to describe an incoordinate
condition of the organism brought about because its wishes,
interests, and purposes,—in a word, its action-patterns,—had been
thwarted. Just what more than this does “evil” imply? _It implies
that our wishes have been thwarted to such an extent as to call
forth from us the most energetic, antagonistic reactions of which
we are capable._ “Good” signifies an outgoing reaction, “bad”
signifies a withdrawing reaction, while “evil” means that within the
organism some of the available energies are being hastily mobilized
to compensate for an outgoing reaction that has been thwarted. Of
course, there are many persons who never attempt any compensation of
such a constructive character as to prevent the recurrence of the
same evil situation, either because they are physically unfit, or are
poor in spirit, but in such cases the word “evil” is used without
very much meaning.

Our definition of this concept will, I think, serve to provide a
new interpretation of the statement made previously, namely, that
“evil always carries with it the presumption of standards or rules.”
What, precisely, does this statement mean? It means that whenever
we have lost our organic equilibrium in the presence of a situation
described as _evil_, whatever we do to recover it _ipso facto_ at
that moment defines not only the standard and rule by which our
conduct is regulated, but such behavior also reveals to others just
what the “problem of evil” really means to us. For example, if we
are vexed and become profane, profanity is patently an integral
factor in our philosophy of compensation. If we lose our money, and
steal another’s to make good our loss, theft is a cardinal principle
in our doctrine of equalization. We may, to be sure, immediately
thereafter lament the outburst by which we attempted to “set things
to rights,” but we cannot retrieve the action by which we defined
and exhibited our practical ethical philosophy. Our recent Emerson
had this scientific truth in mind when he said, “What you are speaks
so loud, I cannot hear what you say.” Examples of another sort
are equally illuminating. If Socrates is condemned to death for
corrupting the Athenian youth, and calmly drinks the hemlock in order
to remain a law-abiding citizen to the end, this deed of probity
defines the dominant action-pattern in his philosophy of retaliation.
If Jesus is crucified for blasphemy and inciting to insurrection,
and manifests an attitude of non-resistance and equanimity, these
action-patterns once more exhibit his method of dealing with the
problem of evil. In every such case the bodily habits which have long
accumulated are automatically released by the appropriate stimulus
into overt behavior. In physiological terms, what a man does in
response to evil, shows what sort of reciprocal innervations his
body has acquired. And while such a mechanistic interpretation of an
ethical standard may seem astonishing, yet such a _modus agendi_ is,
unless we are greatly deceived, the one which human beings actually
employ, and consequently it is the only one which has any place in an
empirical science of conduct.


_A Further Remark on the Opposites of “Good”_

From our definition of “evil” as an intensification of “bad” in the
positive sense of that term, it can at once be noted that these two
words do not even together supply a thoroughgoing antonym to the
word “good.” For they do not strictly imply action-patterns which in
the minute and fine are opposed to those underlying all the valid
uses of the word “good.” It is not to the point that “in general”
(which can only mean here _vaguely_) these words are antithetical
to each other; our analysis has produced knowledge that henceforth
discounts all such remarks. And, if anyone says that for the purposes
of morality, the traditional antithesis is still valid, the answer is
that morality, after all, is only custom, while ethics is primarily
a critical insight into that reality which the moralist has always
sought to make obscure.

A more important conclusion, however, is still to be drawn from the
foregoing analysis. Which is, that “evil” is not, as has usually been
concluded, an opposite of “good.” Indeed, if we have described the
situation fairly, when we say that ‘evil denotes that our wishes have
been thwarted to such an extent as to call forth from us the most
energetic, antagonistic reactions of which we are capable,’ we can
only deduce from this that the antagonistic reactions are aroused for
the purpose of replacing something that is “bad” by something that is
“good.” But if this be the case, then the emphatic quality attaching
to the word “evil” is really a sign that we have already started an
outgoing reaction that shall furnish the desired compensation. This
two-fold meaning of the word “evil” is worthy of more than a passing
remark, but suffice it to say that in the light of what has gone
before, the “problem of evil” now becomes the problem of educating a
man how to replace the “bad” with the “good,” rather than a problem
over which the metaphysician may dawdle or the moralist mope.


FOOTNOTES:

[8]


THE USES OF THE WORD “BAD”


I. _The Privative Significations of the Word “Bad.”_

  1. Bad air; vitiated, which cannot sustain healthy respiration.

  2. Bad coin; debased, counterfeit.

  3. Bad food; deficient in nourishment.

  4. Bad food; repugnant on account of its smell or taste, whether
  deficient in nourishment or not.

  5. Bad shot or guess; incorrect, faulty, below standard or par.

  6. Bad debts; those which cannot or are not expected to be paid. 7.
  To go bad; to decay.

  8. Bad workmanship; defective, below par, sometimes called poor or
  worthless.

  9. In a bad way; in a wretched or miserable state, unfortunate,
  unfavorable.

  10. With a bad grace; unwillingly.


II. _The Positive Significations of the Word “Bad.”_

  1. Bad air; noxious, poisonous.

  2. Bad food or water; injurious to health, hurtful, dangerous,
  pernicious.

  3. Bad company; depraved, wicked, vicious.

  4. Bad fit (as of a shoe); causing inconvenience, displeasure, or
  pain.

  5. Bad smell; unpleasant, offensive, disagreeable, troublesome,
  painful.

  6. “Bad blood”; harsh, angry feeling.

  7. In bad health; suffering from disease or injury, (in pain).

  8. “To the bad”; to ruin, in deficit.

  9. “In bad” (slang); spoken of a man who has made trouble for
  himself and others.


[9] In passing, it might be pertinent to consider the question as to
whether the word “bad” _is_ synonymous with ‘that which disappoints
expectation.’ One might ask, for example, “Do not chronic pessimists
literally expect catastrophe?” Here, as elsewhere, we must not be
deceived by a trick of speech. For he who says, “I expect disaster,”
is unwittingly making an equivocal statement. The man who makes such
a remark cannot be implying that his whole body, with its numerous
action-patterns, is completely set to receive the stimulus that will
demolish his equilibrium. Rather should we infer from this utterance
that he is at least partly prepared to resist it, partly to rejoice
at the incident discomfiture to others, with the hope thereby of
making his own troubles dwindle by comparison, and perhaps also
partly anticipating the relief that will come when the suspense
of waiting is over. None of these interpretations disallow the
formulation of any of the above classes of “bad.” To be sure, there
are certain abnormal types, like the sadist and the masochist, to
whom pain is an erotic stimulus, but even so, their expectations are
always directed to that particular element of the situation which, by
affording an outgoing reaction, is for them a “good.”

[10]


THE SIGNIFICATIONS OF THE TERM “EVIL”

  1. That which causes or increases harm, injury, misfortune, or
  disease.

  2. Such advice as is misleading, mischievous, or disastrous.

  3. Any wish whose fulfilment would lead to calamity, trouble, or
  death.

  4. Any abusive, malicious, or slanderous statement, (compare
  “_evil_ tongue”).

  5. Any period of time characterized by misfortune or suffering.

  6. The term “evil” is also used in special senses, such as in the
  expression “social evil” (that is, prostitution). But such a use of
  this word, being special and more or less provincial, should not be
  over-emphasized in our definition. There are, moreover, many other
  social evils than prostitution, and some producing far more ethical
  disaster.




CHAPTER V

“RIGHT” AS A GESTURAL SIGN

  “From every point of view, the overwhelming and portentous
  character ascribed to universal conceptions is surprising. Why,
  from Plato and Aristotle downwards, philosophers should have vied
  with each other in scorn of the knowledge of the particular, and
  in adoration of that of the general, is hard to understand, seeing
  that the more adorable knowledge ought to be that of the more
  adorable things, and that the _things_ of worth are all concretes
  and singulars. The only value of universal characters is that
  they help us, by reasoning, to know new truths about individual
  things.... In sum, therefore, the traditional universal-worship
  can only be called a bit of perverse sentimentalism, a philosophic
  ‘idol of the tribe.’” W. JAMES, “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. I,
  Chap. XII, pp. 479-80.


There had been a murder in the Maritime Provinces, and two men,
a jurist and a layman, were discussing it. The murdered man, it
appeared, had from time to time missed some of his sheep, and one
day, upon hearing a shot fired, ran down into his pasture, and came
upon two boys, one of whom was carrying a gun, and the other a bag
whose contours plainly revealed that it contained the body of a
sheep. The farmer ordered the boys to follow him to town to give an
account of their misbehavior; and this they proceeded to do without
any show of resistance or word of objection. But suddenly, and
without any warning, the boy who carried the gun shot the farmer in
the back of the head, killing him instantly. The murderer was later
apprehended, and put into the county jail, awaiting trial.

“And would they hang a boy of seventeen in Canada?” asked the layman.

“Why not?” enquired the jurist, “They can hang anyone here who has
reached the age of discretion, and who knows the difference between
right and wrong.”

“And will you tell me,” parried the layman, “just what that age is,
and exactly what that difference is?”

The jurist eyed his inquisitor for a moment, and burst into a laugh.
“Only a fool would ask such a question!” he retorted, and turned away.

All of which goes to show that a man may be proficient in legal
technique, and yet be an ignoramus in ethics. Knowledge of the
meaning of the word “right” is both possible and profitable, and it
is hardly too much to suppose that such knowledge, when disseminated,
might even produce a salutary effect upon legal theory and legal
practice.

Anyone who endeavors to marshal the array of all the uses to
which the word “right” is put, will be astonished to find out how
extensive the list is. In point of the richness of its denotation
and connotation, this concept exceeds the term “good.” And while it
resembles that word in being used as a noun, a verb, an adjective,
and an adverb, it significantly differs from the term “good” in that
it is employed to refer principally to the relations and functions of
things, and hardly ever to objects of the physical environment.

No man’s span of perception is large enough, or his span of attention
long enough, to surround the complete array of the uses of the word
“right” unless this array be divided into classes. Such division
will presently appear. And I think it can be shown that no matter
how little in common some of the terms of this array seem, to a
casual observer, to possess, when they are thus grouped into classes,
they will be subtly linked together by adequate bonds. Let us then
introduce:


CLASS A

  _The Word “Right” as a Term that is Descriptive of Certain
  Mathematical Relationships and Physical Functions._[11]

The original signification of our concept was _straight_, a word, be
it noted, that is usually defined in the negative. (See Ex. 1, p.
76.) Why we have a negative definition for a word that seems to have
a positive meaning, especially to mathematicians and draughtsmen,
is not at first quite obvious. However, when this phenomenon is
duly examined from the point of view of the mechanics of man’s
locomotor apparatus, its secret is no longer hidden. All of the
movements naturally produced by the appendages of the body are
curvilinear: the arm being a lever, or radius vector, it always draws
arcs in space or on paper; so does the hand as a whole, and so do
the fingers. “Right” signifying _straight_, therefore, is defined
negatively simply because straight lines are alien to the physics and
mechanics of man’s original nature.

Where, then, did man get the notion of straightness, and what has
this first class of the uses of “right” to do with ethics? Man got
the notion of straightness, we surmise, from such things as freely
falling bodies, which give not only the idea of perpendicular, but
also and at the same time the ideas of _direct_ and _immediately_;
from the sunbeams which drew for him imaginary lines among the clouds
and through the foliage of the forest; from his need of taking the
shortest course across the fields in pursuit of wild animals for
the supply of his larder; and from his reminiscent ponderings of
the comparative merits of less and less curved and crooked arrows
used in the chase. Moreover, man walks with the greatest safety and
pursues his game with the greatest chances of success when his feet
go without hesitation on a level or straight surface. Under these
conditions he can attain his ends directly and immediately; as the
saying is, “Things will then come out all _right_.” Consequently,
even the straight line has ethical implications: the speed with
which some actions are performed and the time required to cover the
distance between man and his objective are very often the chief
considerations in the attainment of a good or the avoidance of an
evil thing.

And this brings us by a very slight transition to


Class B

  _“Right” as Descriptive of the Method (or Object) by Which the
  Desired End Can be Obtained._

Here the purpose involved, or the end sought, is neither praised
nor blamed. Nor have we indeed as yet reached any basis by which a
criterion of purposes and ends can be established. So far as we have
gone, “right” implies technique, and nothing more.

  The members of this class are as follows:

    13. The “right” information.

    14. “Right” whale; the one to capture in order to get whalebone.

    15. “Rub your sarsnet well, the _right_ way of the sarsnet.”

    16. “Let it be a constant rule to scrub the boards the _right_
    way of the grain, that is, lengthwise.”

    17. “The ship ceased rolling and _righted_ herself.” (Compare
    this signification with _perpendicular_, previously given.)

    18. “Stand it _upright_, or it will fall.”

    19. “Whose inhabitants were _right_ shooters (at an haires
    breadth and faile not).”

    20. “Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows, And be
    a boy _right_ out.”

    21. “I am _right_ of mine old master’s humour for that.”


CLASS C

  _“Right” as Descriptive of any Statement Which Reports the Facts;
  of any Opinion or Judgment that is Correct; and of any Person Who
  Judges, Thinks, or Acts in Accordance with the Facts or the Truth
  about a Matter._[12]

It will be observed that the significations in this class are all
symptomatic of a slight change in the meaning of the concept “right.”
The emphasis here is upon true opinions and judgments in contrast to
false ones. Moreover, the range of behavior covered by Class C is
somewhat broader than that denoted by the two preceding classes. He
who now uses this word “right” becomes judicial, and makes statements
he is willing to defend. More than this we cannot say. We assume
many a time, no doubt, that the statements we call true are backed
by something not ourselves; and while in some cases nature’s laws
are in a sense “behind” our statements, yet unless this is the case,
there is nothing whatever to fall back upon. Thus, while a man may
demonstrate that dynamite is, as he says, truly explosive, yet in
cases of the equitable adjustment of social frictions, where both
parties pour out a tumult of exaggerations, no similar truth of
opinion is obtainable. It would therefore be illogical to assume
that we have reached any absolute criterion in passing from Class B
to Class C of “right.” He who uses this concept in this connection
has, indeed, ventured more than he who uses it only to imply the
preceding two classes, but he is not thereby gifted with superior
powers of discretion. All we can say is that he who undertakes to
make a judgment with all the available information before him is more
likely to be chosen as a referee again. He will at least have the
satisfaction of knowing that if he makes mistakes, they will probably
be some that he has never made before. And this way much of human
progress lies.


CLASS D

  _“Right” as the Distinctive Epithet of the Hand Which is Normally
  the Stronger._[13]

The use of our concept in this connection is firmly bound to its
use in the preceding classes. For it is no accident that in the
mechanistic process called evolution human aims and purposes have
come to be furthered and achieved principally through the power and
skill of the arm and hand. The “right” arm and hand point reasonably
_straight_, throw missiles in a fairly direct _manner_, and their
powerful shots bring down the quarry _immediately_. (Class A.)
These parts of the body are also among the most educible and skilful
in the technique requisite for bringing about a desired end. Their
action-patterns are indeed often the very method by which ambitions
are achieved. (Class B.) And when we have reached a judgment that
is deemed to be true or in accordance with the facts of the matter
(Class C.), it is our “right” hand that is ready to be motivated
in its defence. Even the art of writing, in the original sense of
cutting, tearing, or scratching to produce a record or a design, is
not at all distantly related to the functions of this part of the
body.

With this clearly understood, the transition is easy to make to


CLASS E

  _Legal “Rights”; that is, Those Claims and Interests the
  Establishment and Protection of Which May Be Secured by Force and
  even Violence._[14]

As used in this connection, “right” is partially equivalent to
_might_, since our concept here connotes an organized force,—a
physical power,—which, under given conditions, can be employed for
the purpose of establishing claims and protecting interests. This
organized force is popularly referred to as “the Law,” especially
by those who indulge in back-yard altercations and cry out: “If you
do that again, I’ll have the Law on you!” And the ordinary man,
whose six or seven years of public schooling have implanted in him
the fixed habit of reifying all abstractions, understands the law
as equivalent to a transcendental force of some kind which makes
his threats effective. As befits the mental calibre of such a man,
the law frequently becomes synonymous with the functions of the
police, who are naïvely supposed to know when and how to protect
everybody’s legal rights. This is an error. Not only are the police
extremely ignorant persons, but they have scarcely any legal status
whatever. They are “the tolerated remnant of the autocratic power
which absolute monarchs once exercised over their subjects.” Law and
legal rights are functions of the courts, while the police are simply
unattached huskies hired to bring into court those who do not come
there of their own initiative. We must look elsewhere for the source
of the might which legal rights are said and felt to possess, namely,
in the origin and function of law itself.

Briefly stated, law originated as a means to protect men against
loss of property, against bodily harm, and against damage to their
personality through the actions of their fellows. It did not
originate as a means to prevent or repair the damage to life or
property caused by cloudbursts or lightning, or the loss of income
brought about by avalanches, laziness, or disease; it had only to do
with actions for which some man could be held responsible. Now the
actions which produce the loss of property, bodily harm, and damage
to personality are usually actions arising from, as well as leading
to, emotional disturbances. Theft, murder, and libel, for example,
are about the most potent stimuli to violent retaliation that can be
provided. Nevertheless, it is sound psychology that most emotions
quickly cool if the stimulus be withdrawn, that wrath has to be
nursed if it is to be kept warm, and that absence does not make the
heart grow fonder. Here is where the law performs its chief function.
For the law is simply an ingenious device to get a judgment on
the conflict of human interests which shall not be tinged with the
passions that provoked the conflict. And while legal procedure may
not always be fair, especially in the eyes of the loser, its methods
certify that it shall not be precipitous or rancorous in rendering a
decision. Legal rights, therefore, are not equivalent to the capacity
for revenge, but rather consist in the ability to get old quarrels
looked at by new and unbiased eyes. Herein consists much of the
prestige of the law, and since prestige has always been regarded as a
kind of power, men are not slow to employ it in the establishment of
their claims and the protection of their interests.

Law, however, is frequently misinterpreted when its function
is thought to be preventative of discord, rather than judicial
and equitable. Law is no guardian angel. No law can prevent the
unobserved Richard Roe from murdering the defenceless John Doe; nor
can it hinder the murderer (still unobserved) from altering Doe’s
will to his own material advantage; neither can it be guaranteed to
forestall the murderer from making the false plea that Doe was about
to assault his daughter. The law did not make man in its own image;
according to scripture it was God who did that. Law does not set
out to protect the careless or the poor in spirit. Its machinery is
normally put into operation only for those with enough initiative to
look out for their own interests. If a patentee knowingly allows
one infringement of his patent rights, he might as well donate his
invention to the public. The law does not hunt for trouble, or carry
on a bureau for the exchange of expressions of malcontent. It does
not even demand that a clearly known offender of society, and one
conscious of his offence, enter a plea of guilty. Actually, the
function of law is simply to preserve and to restore order and peace
in society, and not to define what that order and peace shall be.
Were ninety per cent of the people in the world suddenly to become
stubbornly devoted to thieving, the public peace would have to be
redefined in terms of their attitude toward property. Moreover, as
it is now, the law merely attempts to imitate the security which
is provided by “gentlemen’s agreements,” which security is largely
maintained without the help of the courts. For it is very plain that
millions keep the peace, while only a few hundreds know the law. Law,
then, may be fairly characterized as an impersonal referee, whose
business it is to persuade and oblige the disturbers of the social
equilibrium to employ the methods and standards of conduct which have
always marked free men.

With this by way of introduction, it is not difficult to understand
why “right” in the legal sense of the word is so closely related to
_might_. For the term “legal rights” refers not only to those claims
and interests which may be established and protected, but also and
rather to those which _have long been_ secured by force. In other
words, some of them have the advantage of the momentum of custom and
tradition. Now custom and tradition, whatever else they may be, are
certainly action-patterns which are generated and maintained by the
bodies of human beings. They are habits, both of overt action and
covert thought,—response processes of the neuro-muscular apparatus.
The tenacity of these habits, moreover, is due to the combined
action of two well-known physiological mechanisms,—the conditioned
reflex and the circular reflex. The conditioned reflex, which is
dependent upon the repetition of stimuli, is particularly prevalent
where day by day the same persons, the same kinds of property, and
the same predicaments of living are met with; and so we may say
that customs and traditions (and with them the inevitable claims
and interests) are created by the environment as much as by the
organism. The circular reflex, or proprio-ceptive reinforcement of
any action-tendency, governs much of our behavior, even though we
little suspect it. It underlies occupational postures, idiosyncracies
of gait and of facial expression, and indeed, without circular
reflexes we should not have either tenacity of purpose or the ability
to hold a grudge. Its function in the establishment and maintenance
of those action-patterns on which tradition depends is of paramount
importance. And since these two reflexes are largely responsible for
the difficulty with which habits of action and thought are broken,
the support which they give to maintaining the tradition of legal
rights is hardly to be overestimated. Thus, from the mechanistic
point of view, the homage which we give to legal rights is after all
simply equivalent to the expenditure of energy in our bodies for the
purpose of maintaining particular habits of action. Indeed, in those
who maintain the public peace, all the energy which goes into actions
which promote the order of society is literally spent to uphold legal
rights of one sort or another. It is this energy, this physical
power, which we referred to recently when we said that “right” is
partially equivalent to _might_.

And yet, in spite of the apparently great amount of muscle power
that is, so to speak, behind all legal rights, from the logical
point of view, the use and effectiveness of this power is altogether
contingent upon the exact nature of the claim and interest which
one desires to be secured. The logical statement of the situation
here involved would take the form of a hypothetical proposition,
namely, _If_ the claim or interest is of a certain kind, _then and
then only_ may it be established and protected. And while this might
seem at first to indicate that legal rights were seriously lacking
in point of authority, yet this is not the case, for the strongest
possible assertions that can be made are always couched in the form
of hypothetical propositions. As Couterat states in his “Algebra of
Logic,” “Every proposition which implies another is stronger than the
latter, and the latter is weaker than the one which implies it.” The
blunt categorical proposition is far less powerful, since by itself
it implies nothing whatever, whereas hypotheticals leave no doubt as
to the necessary consequences. All the laws of nature, which, by the
way, cannot be broken, are stated in hypothetical form. Moreover,
since it is the antecedent, and not the consequent, of a hypothetical
proposition which gives it strength, it is easy to see that any
particular claim and interest is rendered all the more likely of
being established and protected _if_ similar claims and interests
have long been recognized in the law as valid. In practice we find
this to be the case: the common law which is the oldest code is also
the one to which new claims to legal right are invariably referred.

Having looked at the picture of legal rights from one angle, let us
now look at it from another. While in strict logic the statement of
these rights in the form of a hypothetical imperative gives them an
undeniable strength, it must now be admitted that from the pragmatic
point of view it signifies at times a discouraging weakness. For it
has often been the case that the establishment of claims and the
protection of interests has in practice depended upon such vexatious
variables as the pet theories of experts (e. g., alienists), the
hunger, fatigue, and stubbornness of jurymen, the internal secretions
of judges, a crowded or empty condition of the jails, current
sociological theory, and even such astonishing things as one’s
affiliation with secret societies, or one’s political “pulls,” not to
mention, except by a passing remark, the determination of a litigant
to carry his case to the higher courts clear beyond the ability of
his antagonist’s purse to follow him there. So that if we ask whether
some particular claim or interest can and will be established or
protected, the real answer in a large number of border-line cases is,
“Nobody knows.” Justice, who carries in her hand a balance whereby
to weigh the evidence fairly, has also her eyes blindfolded against
seeing what manner of weights are put into either pan. This defect of
law, however, is not to be wondered at when we remember that legal
theory cannot anticipate all of the innumerable claims and interests
which either honest or knavish persons are likely to support as
valid. If the theory of law had been as complicated as human society
has become, it could not have accomplished the half of what it has
already achieved.

From all this it can be seen that the assertion of a legal right
is not always equivalent to its substantiation. Times change,
bringing with them new faces and other minds, new problems and new
interpretations. Nor, for that matter, are all commonly accepted
rights under the law equally to be supported by physical force.
Strictly speaking, only those rights which imply a correlative duty
are truly legal rights. Reciprocity of action is essential. For
example, if Baker has a legally recognized or substantiated right to
do, receive, or enjoy something, it is the duty of Atkins and others
not to infringe or nullify that right. Mark also, that both duty and
right here imply that physical force may be directed against some
specified person, or against all persons generally in case of need,
in order to establish the claim and protect the interest involved.
However, as may be already suspected, not everything that is legally
sanctioned or which enters into legal machinery has the same force
behind it as in the case we have just cited. The right of ownership,
for example, which to the layman seems to be a unit right, involves
five distinct things, as follows: (1) the _jus disponendi_, or right
to give away, (2) the _jus utendi_, or right to use, (3) the _jus
abutendi_, or the right to abuse, (4) the _jus prohibendi_, the right
to keep others away, and (5) the _jus possidendi_, or the right to
recover the property. But only one of these is, strictly speaking, a
right in the sense that it involves a correlative duty, namely, the
_jus prohibendi_. For the _jus disponendi_ is simply a power, and not
a right at all: and the _jus utendi_ is wholly negative in the legal
sense, implying non-interference in the exercise of a natural power;
whereas the _jus abutendi_ is a liberty (neither a right nor a power)
whose exercise is nominally unrestricted: while the _jus possidendi_
is simply the legal capacity to get back that which one is said to
own.

This ends our account of legal rights. We now pass to the
consideration of the other uses of this most comprehensive ethical
concept. Somewhat by way of contrast to that which has just
preceded, let us at once consider


CLASS F,

under which are comprised what are popularly known as “moral”
_rights_.[15]

A casual glance at the appended list of the members of this class
might lead one to consider them simply as a continuation of legal
rights, but this is by no means the case. Albeit moral rights are
identical with legal rights in so far as they imply a multitude
of human claims and interests, they are nevertheless emphatically
different from them on a much more important point. Moral rights lack
all implications of an organized physical force to compel their
recognition. The only compulsions that can be said to assist in the
establishment of the claims and the protection of the interests
comprised under the scope of moral rights are the approval and
disapproval of the group which undertakes to recognize and support
them. In fine, these compulsions amount to the force of public
opinion. And while this force is at times provocative of changes
in the method or content of the law which may later be recognized
as good, on the whole, public opinion is usually so unspecific and
inconstant as to be wholly negligible as a power to enforce any
demands. Certainly no jurist regards moral right as obligatory.

On still another count moral rights show a serious defect. For when
we say that the enforcement of the claims and interests comprised
within the scope of moral rights depends upon the approval of the
group, it must not be supposed that the actions of any group and the
actions which it approves are necessarily one and the same. This
is a sour paradox, but its appropriateness cannot be successfully
denied. The standard of conduct which any group subscribes to under
pressure, either in writing, or before an audience, is singularly
different from the behavior of the group under easier circumstances.
Moreover, it is the exception, and not the rule, for those who
dominate a group,—whether such masters be parents, political bosses,
or any other form of lordling,—to hold their charges to a stricter
accountability than they themselves, removed from correlative
restraints, recognize as imperative. Doubtless, in the execution of
the law, many a time privileges are granted to people of wealth and
prestige which are denied to the humbler petitioners at the bar; but
the difference between legal and moral practice is significantly
this: that in legal practice evasions are no integral part of the
machinery. This does not amount to a condemnation of moral rights:
it is merely holding up the mirror to man, in order that he may see
himself clearly. All in all, consistency may be as impracticable as
it has been unsought for in the daily affairs of men.

However, when we consider the unusual claims made in behalf of moral
rights, there are valid exceptions to be taken to them. For while in
the strict legal sense, moral right is impotent, yet according to
the expressed opinion of the untutored majority, moral right is far
mightier than legal right. Let us see why this is so.

In the first place, not all human claims and interests are or can be
protected by law. It is not the purpose of law to be rigid. However
many statutes, for example, are enacted year by year, the interests
they are supposed to protect increase too rapidly to be covered by
such statutes. Moreover, as in the case with the right of ownership,
many powers and privileges are granted, the exact enjoyment or
exercise of which no law could either predict or circumscribe. Hence
there always remains a residue of interest that is not comprised
within the scope of matured legal tradition. But it is just these
newer interests for which some persons demand most emphatically
the right to be satisfied. We live not in the past, but on the
foremost edge of time, and we are prone to demand as much support
for our youngest claims as for those which have a thousand years of
legal recognition behind them. Now, undoubtedly, many claims are
insufficiently recognized by law. When, however, in the pause before
this recognition is secured, people begin to claim for such interests
a “superior” moral right to be satisfied, and in comparison to that
“superior” right assert that legal rights are merely unfounded
prejudices, the charge of inconsistency can be leveled directly
against them. Ignorance of the function and scope of the law is
no excuse for holding it up to ridicule. Indeed, it is not at all
certain that the law could include the satisfaction of every human
claim and interest whatever without becoming itself destroyed by this
inclusion.

In the second place, there are some persons in whom the law’s
delays, as well as their experience with the _un_evenhandedness of
justice, has provoked a deep-seated prejudice against particular
lawyers and jurists, which prejudice, by means of the fallacy of
composition, they readily transmute into a scorn for whatever is
expressly denominated as legal. Under such conditions the penchant
for moral rights may be often nothing but the product of a mind that
has become malcontent with things as they are; with the result that
solace is sought in the fiction of a set of moral rights which are
regarded as possessing a “higher” or final authority. From such a
person come Examples Nos. 59 and 76, recently cited. Two comments
can be made upon such a case as this. The first of these is that it
is quite certain that no man who has become so pessimistic will see
his way clear to the solution of the problem that has given him so
much tragic concern. As Spinoza says, “The will and the intellect are
one and the same,” but as Spinoza also hinted, the intellect and the
emotions are not. Moreover, such malcontentedness is relatively easy
to annul: let anyone who curses the law begin to make use of it to
his advantage, and his “suppressed complex,” as the Freudians would
say, rapidly evaporates.

A third and final reason why moral rights and the so-called moral
law are sometimes regarded as superior to all things legal is that
among so many persons the curious conviction obtains that they are
individually the pets of Providence, and that consequently whether
they stir themselves or not, become sagacious or remain meek as
lambs, their affairs will be satisfactorily adjusted without their
exertions. Under such illusions many persons take refuge throughout
their lives, forgetting curiously enough that the order of nature has
not supplied them with benevolent guardians, tutors, and managers.
The result is that to such people right is synonymous merely with
what _ought to be_, rather than with even a small part of what
already is. But when they thus employ the term right, it is debased.
One often hears such people say with regard to a catastrophe: “Oh,
well, I suppose we shall have to make the best of it,”—a remark
that is rarely prophetic of anything more than continued brooding.
If it prophesied the accumulation of technique for a continuous,
constructive effort, their moral rights would not be so bereft of
reality.


CLASS G

Here the word “right” signifies certain unspecified and unrestricted
liberties and privileges sanctioned in the manner of customs, the
only authority behind which is the threat of social ostracism should
they be disregarded.[16] As will be observed at once, some of the
members of this class might, if one prefers, be included in some of
the other classes of “right.”


CLASS H

That which is most convenient, desirable, or favorable; conforming
to one’s wish or desire; to be preferred; fortunate; lucky, etc.[17]
Some of these examples, like those in the preceding class, may in
the eyes of some judges be more appropriately classified in another
place. If so, let the change be made. There is undoubtedly an echo
of Class B and of Class F in several instances. But a more important
item seems to be that here are unmistakable hints of an adverbial or
expletive signification for our concept. This hint is fully carried
out in the final division,


CLASS I

in which the term “right” signifies “very,” “in a great degree,”
as in certain titles: (111) “_Right_ reverend,” (112) “_Right_
honorable,” as well as in the expressions: (113) “_Right_ truly
may it be said,” and (114) “The word ‘cootie’ is _right_ old
Scottish.” However, as this use of the concept _right_ is often to
be interpreted as signifying “justly entitled to the name of,” or
“having the true character of,” Class I may be regarded as a footnote
to Classes C and G.

This completes our search for the significations of the word
“_right_.” Nevertheless, all this is merely a preliminary step toward
the main business of our investigation, namely, the discovery of the
action-patterns which are implied by these nine classes we have just
delimited. We have seen that these classes are all subtly connected,
and this leads us to hope that some greatest common denominator will
be found that will factor into all of them. It is also apparent that
as we pass from Class A to Class E, we reach a climax, after which
we decline; that up to the climax there is order and dignity, and
that from Class F onwards our array consists mostly of scraps and
debris. Our problem, then, is to exhibit not only the motor attitude
which each class implies, but also the procession of such attitudes
throughout the whole nine classes. For only by so doing shall we be
able to comprehend the meaning of this important ethical concept.


_The Meaning of the Word “Right”_

1. As deduced from Class A. It will be recalled that this class
signifies _straight_ (not curved or crooked in any way), _direct_
(by the shortest course), and _immediately_ (in the quickest time).
These words, moreover, refer not only to events in nature, but
also and more particularly, to human activities. It has also been
pointed out that when a man can proceed in a straight line toward his
objective, he will proceed directly, and arrive there in the quickest
possible time. Such behavior is, within the limits hitherto defined,
described as _right_. Now what does all this involve in the way of
action-patterns? It involves, first, perception of the goal, second,
ability to keep the goal in mind, and third, energy sufficient to
attain it. According to Max Meyer, one of the instincts manifested
by a hungry organism is “to proceed forward in a straight line” (!)
And whether this be truly instinctive or not, the example illustrates
our point very nicely. For any organism vexed with hunger of any
sort whatsoever (and there are, according to the poets, many kinds),
will do “right” in following Max Meyer’s advice. The action-pattern
implied in all this is not difficult to determine. It is the
coordination of motor activities requisite for the movement of the
whole body speedily through space, unwaveringly toward its objective.

The complete analysis of the mechanisms by which such behavior is
accomplished would be both too difficult and too exhaustive to be
undertaken here. We may, however, point out some few of the salient
factors involved. It has been shown that, so far as Class A is
concerned, to do _right_ is to proceed directly and immediately,
and along a straight line, if possible, to the desired object. Such
behavior requires both strength and skill; from which it also follows
that a feeble, untrained body will be unable to do “right” in a great
many cases, simply because it cannot reach its goal in the face of
obstacles. This is our common observation. Before a baby learns to
walk, it cannot proceed directly or immediately across a floor.
Neither can an exhausted man, unable to use the sun for a compass,
find his way to safety out of a tropical forest. For a person in his
predicament, things are not likely to come out “right.” Furthermore,
in a great many cases of the same sort, skill and strength are _both_
required; neither one alone is sufficient to attain the desired end.
Let now the psychologist tell the story of how the attainment of
skill depends upon a standard equipment of sense organs, a sound and
complete brain, and muscles from which sensory stimuli elicit precise
responses. Let also the physiologist relate here how bodily vigor
likewise depends upon the interrelation of internal functions: how
the heart, lungs, brain, muscles, thyroid, liver, and adrenals all
work together to make any effort successful and complete. When this
has been said, the meaning of the word “right” as defined in Class A
will have been more fully revealed.

2. As deduced from Class B. Here the word “right” is used to describe
the method or object by which any desire may be realized. The
requirements for membership in this class appear at first to be less
rigid than was the case with Class A. The speed of motion that was
stressed in the former class is inessential here, as well as the
necessity of proceeding by the shortest course. Here also a beefy
body is not as imperative as are skill and sagacity. But let us not
make a favorite of either class before we have heard the whole story.
And first let us ask, what is the typical action-pattern implied
by Class B? The answer is not difficult to give. There is a phrase,
“selective excitability,” which psychologists have long applied to
the situation where a sensori-motor mechanism is attuned by practice
to respond to one specific stimulus, and to be entirely unresponsive
to others. We exhibit this selective excitability every time we take
“our” hat from the crowded coat-room, choose “our” favorite cigar
from a case full of attractive Havanas, or fumble thoughtfully in
“our” pocket for a cent to give to the crouching beggar. In every
such case, we are said to employ the “right” object and perform the
“right” action. Actions of this sort involve choice, which as we have
already hinted (See footnote, p. 32, Chap. II.), involves the use of
one member of a pair of antagonistic muscles. Consequently, we may
describe the action-pattern underlying the use of “right” in Class
B as any sort of behavior which involves selective excitability and
selective activity. So that whatever Class B lacks in generality as
compared with Class A, is compensated for by an increase in precision
and, what is equally important, by an _economy_ of human energy in
the pursuit of the desired object. The importance of this last factor
has already been sufficiently hinted at in the quotation that appears
on the title-page of this book.

3. As deduced from Class C. The change from Class A to Class B
involved an increase in what is known as intelligence, that is, the
ability to solve new problems. The change to Class C may be regarded
as involving a continued advance of the same general character. But
this change involves something more. For, as we have already stated,
“right” now becomes “descriptive of any statement which reports the
facts: of any opinion or judgment that is correct: and of any person
who judges, thinks, or acts in accordance with the facts or truth
of a matter.” Two changes in emphasis are consequently to be noted
here. First, the word “right” is applied to utterances rather than to
deeds alone; and second, a metonomy is introduced in the application
of our concept to persons who make correct statements. This shift
of emphasis from an action to the description of it, and from the
description to the describer need not cause us any difficulty, even
though it envisages for us a million years of the education of the
human race.

The success of our search for the meaning of our concept is here
dependent upon the function of speech to imply and predict action,—a
function which we have already commented upon in our second chapter.
Words, like thoughts, are either reminiscent of overt action, or
else they assist in preparing us for it. When, then, a man uses the
word “right” to commend either statements or persons, it is the same
as if he were to say: “Either there were, or there are, or there
may be, objects and events as you describe, and I think as you do
about them.” The action-pattern here implicated is plainly that of
_belief_. It involves a lowered threshold with respect to the person
or statement called “right,” and a correspondingly higher threshold
toward those persons or statements which contradict what is accepted.
And as was the case with Class B, this action-pattern involves the
use of one of the halves of a system of antagonistic muscles, since
the “emphasis here is upon true opinions and judgments in contrast
to false ones.” This, however, is not all that can be said upon this
point. For every case of belief is a case of constitutional readiness
so to respond. And while we do not exactly know how the body provides
such predeterminations, if the theory of action-patterns is sound,
the conjecture is not unfounded that belief is a function of chronic
postures maintained in the muscles of the voluntary system.

Evidences in favor of this conjecture are readily supplied from
our everyday scrutiny of the faces of our fellow-men. The beggar’s
hand is actually a different hand than the hand of the donor; as
he sits on the sidewalk, his predetermination to receive alms is
patent in the chronic posture of even his palm and fingers. The
courtesan not only manifests her willingness to exchange smiles by
the chronic postures in her eyelids and mouth, but with a fitness
that a De Maupassant might celebrate, she also acquires a carriage
that betokens her particular vocation. Contrariwise, the generous,
affable man gives evidence that his traits are at least muscle-deep;
while every actor will confess that if he gets into the adequate
posture, the character he is depicting is automatically portrayed.
Those who pray also confess that there are certain bodily attitudes
which hinder, and others which assist, the flow of sentiment which
they desire. Photographic evidences such as these, however, are not
the only proofs we possess of postural predeterminations of action
and thought, for it is sound physiology that in the multifariously
complex musculature of the body, there are unnoticed postural
tensions being generated and maintained all the while. And since,
according to the all-or-none principle of nervous and muscular
activity, every motor tendency is a truly positive physiological
event, whenever we manifest belief, some part of the body is
preparing to execute a movement appropriate to the assertion implied.
Indeed, we may safely postulate that a large portion of what we call
our individuality is a function of those chronic postures which
our habits have hitherto established in our motor mechanism,—which
postures ever thereafter determine what we shall do, say, and believe.

4. As deduced from Class D. Here the word “right” is used to signify
“the hand which is normally the stronger,” whence, by association,
it refers to a variety of related things, as hitherto indicated. We
have previously noted that the concept “right” is a term we often use
when the attainment of a purpose is under consideration, and here we
again see the same motif displayed. Everybody knows that the “right”
hand is important in the acquisition of skill of all sorts, and in
getting in touch with the things we call “good.” Evidences of the
paramount usefulness of the “right” hand to carry out overt actions
are ubiquitous. Moreover, levers, pliers, and a hundred other tools
are simply extensions of its functions and magnifications of its
powers. What, then, are the action-patterns suggested by this use
of our concept? The answer is extremely simple. The action-patterns
we seek are the innumerable activities of the _right_ hand itself.
For, as we have previously shown, even to think of the hand involves
neuro-muscular activity in it. What the right hand _does_, is what
the concept “right,” as applied to the hand, _means_. And if, for any
reason, the “right” hand is incapacitated or missing, some other part
of the body executes the appropriate gesture or manœuvre.

5. As deduced from Class E. The transition from Class D to Class E
is made on the basis of a common element that is shared by both. We
have just seen that the “right” hand is the stronger and the more
adroit, and that consequently it is the one more adequately equipped
to turn our wishes into wills. No logician, then, is required to
convince us that legal “right,” in the sense of being equivalent
to might, connotes the same sort of strength and force as are
involved in the grasp and tug of the hand. Were the policeman the
pure embodiment of legal “rights,” the action-patterns implied by
Class E would be easy to determine, since they would be simply the
total behavior of that functionary while on his beat. The problem
before us is, to be sure, not quite so easy of solution as reference
to the policeman would make it, but nevertheless, our previous
discussion of legal “right” has hinted just what that solution is to
be. For legal “rights” are one and all concerned with the security
of whatever things a man calls _his_, together with the adjustment
of conflicting claims regarding them. To enumerate in detail all
the action-patterns here implied would be equivalent to making an
inventory of all the deeds that had ever been performed to preserve
property, life, and personality, and to maintain and restore peace
and order in society. Let the historian open his books and show us
the panorama of these achievements. And while we should see upon many
of his pages portrayals of torpid conservatism, ruthless domineering,
and magnificent cunning, we should also behold examples of that
impersonal referee of whom we have already spoken, whose business it
is to persuade and oblige the disturbers of the social equilibrium to
employ the methods and standards of conduct which have always marked
free men. He who would clearly comprehend such a panorama must needs
give it more than a fugitive glance; for as it required time to be
created, so does it require time in which to be appreciated.

6. As deduced from Class F. Moral “rights” are all those unsecured
claims and inexactly specified interests whose only protection
is the approval and disapproval of the community, reinforced at
times by an appeal to a super-human protagonist. A comparison
between the motor-attitudes implied by Class E and Class F reveals
several important differences. Juristic thinking, which we may for
convenience characterize as the attitude implied by Class E, is on
the whole logically coherent; moralistic thinking, on the contrary,
commits every known logical fallacy. Again, juristic thinking is
content to regard human problems capable of solution at the hands of
human beings, and to consider that the verdicts of unruffled men and
of men expert in their lines is final; while moralistic thinking is
ever prone to employ methods which, on account of their provincialism
and importunity, do not stand analysis at the hands of unbiased
investigators. Finally, the “higher judge” which moralists assert
stands behind the claims they make, is simply a misinterpretation of
the meaning of long unrelieved tensions which have accumulated in
their skeletal muscles. For while we do not declare that all claims
unsecured by law are ethically invalid, we do nevertheless assert
that the typical moralist’s attitude toward all such unsecured claims
is not one that is suited to bridge the gap between our liquid matter
and its good. Nevertheless, we may say without equivocation that
behind every declaration of moral rights there is an anxiety lest
some dependable good be lost, and this motor attitude we conceive to
be the greatest common divisor of all the significations included
under Class F.

7. As deduced from Class G. Although this class resembles the
preceding one in that it refers to customs whose maintenance depends
upon the approval and disapproval of the group, Class G lacks all
of the fiercely Stoical and Puritanical elements found in Class
F, just as it lacks the logical rigor pertaining to Class E. The
action-patterns implied by this present class are rather those of a
courteous gentleman, who persuades whenever he can by a gesture, but
who does not try twice to persuade those who will not yield to that
kind of a suggestion.

8. As deduced from Class H. Since “right” here signifies that which
is convenient, desirable, favorable, etc., the action-patterns which
it implies are practically identical with those of the first three
classes of “good.” Certainly every example previously cited under
this class points to an outgoing reaction.

9. As deduced from Class I. The adverbial use of our concept here
implies merely a gesture of positive emphasis that may be added to
any other action-pattern.

Having previously sorted the manifold significations of the word
“right” among these nine classes, and having subsequently shown
what the organism was doing when it employed this word with respect
to each of these classes, it now remains to discover whether any
one action-tendency is commonly hinted by each and all of these
nine classes. If such a common tendency can be discovered, the
word “right” may then indeed be said to possess all these various
significations indicated in our array; otherwise, we shall err in
considering it to be one and the same word in all the examples
previously cited. In attempting to discover and certify such a common
tendency, moreover, we shall employ the same method suggested for
the summarizing of the meanings of the word “good.” We recognize
that in the title by which each class of “right” is denoted, there
is no presumption that such a title does more than indicate the
general trend of that class; logically, the titles merely imply the
greatest common divisors of the many phrases included in the classes.
So that when we now attempt to define the common tendency in all
the action-patterns we have just deduced from these nine classes,
we are to consider only their similarities, while discarding their
differences. There is nothing novel in this method; it is simply the
way in which all concepts have been unconsciously derived.

Such a common tendency is not difficult to discover. Each class
as we defined it in behavioristic terms turned out to imply an
action-tendency that played an important part in the behavior of
human beings while in the pursuit of the objects they desire, or
in the attainment of their ends, however variously conceived or
projected. Let us, then, bring the whole matter to a focus by saying
that _whenever we describe a behavior situation in which the
dominant feature is the controlling and directing of human energies,
the employment of technique to further man’s purposes, or the
attaining of any good whatsoever, the critical word is “right._” This
is, indeed, what our concept, as we have analysed it, finally _means_.

Further than this a strictly scientific ethics does not go, and,
moreover, further than this no intellectually honest man will go.
Right simply means what people use the word to signify,—employing
it either as a gesture to point out some object or relationship in
the environment, or else as an index of what sort of behavior may
be expected of them in the future. Accordingly, all insistence on a
“higher and immutable right” as _the one real_ meaning of the term
is either a sign of mal-observation or of logorrhea. And if anyone
still insists on knowing how one determines what is _right_, we refer
such a person to our array of 114 terms, where in each case the basis
for such determination can be inferred. But if such a person still
demands an ultimate and irrefutable criterion, the only thing left
for him to do is to attempt to be God; but it is suggested in advance
that the role of deity might, under the circumstances, be even more
difficult to play than the more familiar rôle of man.


FOOTNOTES:

[11] Class A is divided into the following sub-classes:

  I. Straight.

    1. That which is not bent, curved, or crooked in any way; for
    example, a _straight_ line.

    2. That which is formed by, or with reference to, a line drawn
    to another line or surface by the shortest course (i. e., a
    perpendicular), as, for example, _right_ line, _right_ angle,
    _right_ ascension, etc.

    3. Used to describe solid figures having the ends or base at an
    angle of 90 degrees with the axis, e. g., _right_ solid, _right_
    sphere, _right_ cone, _right_ helicoid, etc.

    4. _Right_ circle; in the stereographic projection, a circle
    represented by a straight line.

    5. _Right_ line pen; one that is adapted especially for ruling
    lines.

  II. Direct.

    6. The shortest course; that which keeps one and the same
    direction throughout.

    7. That which goes straight to its destination. Compare: “Right
    across the track.”

  III. Immediately. (Compare “directly.”)

    8. Suddenly, at once; e. g., “He went _right_ home.” “_Right_ up
    the mountain.” “Let thine eyes look _right_ on.” “He went _right_
    off.”

    9. _Right_ away, _right_ here, _right_ now, _right_ down (Cf.
    downright). “These strata falling, the whole tract sinks down ‘to
    rights’ in the abyss.”

  IV. Idiomatic uses derived from the foregoing.

    10. In hunting, the scent or track of the game. “The dogs have
    got the _right_.”

    11. “_Right_ the helm,” that is, put it in line with the keel.

    12. “_Right_ aft,” that is, in direct line with the axis and
    stern of the ship.


[12]

  This class includes:

    22. “You say not _right_, old man.”

    23. “A _right_ description of our sport, my Lord.”

    24. “There hath been a terrible to-do, I could not possibly learn
    the very _right_ of it.”

    25. “You are certainly in the _right_.”

    26. “To put the saddle on the _right_ horse.” (That is, to impute
    blame where it is deserved.)

    27. “The clock that stands still points _right_ twice in the four
    and twenty hours; while others may keep going continually and be
    continually going wrong.”

    28. “A fool must now and then be _right_ by chance.”

    29. “And this wise world of ours is mainly _right_.”

  30. “Some praise at morning what they blame at night,
      But always think the last opinion _right_.”

  Idiomatic and archaic uses, signifying _true_, _real_, _actual_,
  _genuine_, _correct_.

    31. “If they be not _right_ Granado silk.”

    32. “A pound of ointment of _right_ spikenard.”

    33. “A _right_ pipe of Trinidad.”

    34. “My _ryghte_ doghter, tresoure of myn herte.”

    35. “The Poet is indeed the _right_ Popular Philosopher, whereof
    Esops tales giue good proofe.”

    36. “Be sure you’re _right_, then go ahead.”

    37. _Right!_ _Right_-O! _Right_ you are! (Slang.)


[13] This class includes:

  38. That side of the body which is on the east when the face is
  toward the north, its limbs, their clothing, etc., as, for example,
  _right_ arm, cheek, leg, ear, coat-sleeve, and so on.

  39. Motions in the direction implied in the preceding example: “Go
  to the _right_.” “_Right_ about.”

  40. Anything, usually one member of a pair, shaped or otherwise
  adapted for a _right_-hand position or use, e. g., gloves, shoes,
  etc.

  41. A _right_-side tool. A _right_-hand thread on a machine screw.

  42. _Right_ camphor; “The camphor produced from the Lauraceae which
  gives a _right_ polarization to light.

  43. _Right_ bower; in euchre the knave of trumps, which is the
  highest card next to the joker. This card has a place in our study
  of “right” if for no other reason than that it signifies power of
  achievement in that player who finds it in his hand.

  44. The _right_ hand of fellowship. This expression denotes a
  custom of very ancient origin, practised in treaties by the
  Persians and Parthians, not only as an inviolable pledge of
  fidelity (“In union there is strength.”), but also as a proof that
  no club or other weapon was concealed in the hand.

  45. In the politics of continental Europe,—that party which
  occupies the position to the _right_ of the president in the
  legislative assembly.

  46. By metonomy (conditioned reflex) the conservative political
  party.

  47. By selective association, the party or party principles which
  one approves.


[14] As a partial list of the significations included in this class,
may be cited:

  48. In the legal sense, that which justly accrues or falls to
  anyone, that which one may properly claim, one’s due, e. g.,
  territory, estate, dominion.

  49. Particular cases of the preceding: _Right_ of eminent domain,
  Constitutional _rights_, Corporeal _rights_, Inchoate _right_ of
  dower, Innominate _rights_, etc.

  50. Idiomatic expressions: “To be in the _right_,” “To have the
  _right_,” “With _right_,” “By _right_ or _rights_,” “Of _right_,”
  “To have due _right_,” etc.

  51. Joint _rights_; a title or claim to something properly
  possessed by two or more persons.

  52. A document substantiating a legally recognized claim or title.

  53. Legally just or equitable treatment.

  54. “_Right_ drawn sword,” drawn in a just cause.

  55. The person, party, or cause which is sustained in a
  controversy. (Compare Ex. 47, Class D.)

  56. To do one _right_; to do one justice.

  57. “_Right_ money”; money paid as the condition or consideration
  of acquiring a “right” to the purchase of land.

  58. The title or claim to the enjoyment of privileges or
  indemnities. (A relatively unemphatic use of the term “legal
  _right_.”)


[15] The significations included in this class are numerous and
various. As follows:

  59. “In conformity with the moral law; permitted by the principle
  which ought to regulate conduct; in accordance with truth, justice,
  duty, or the will of God; ethically good, equitable, just.”

  60. “A poor man has no [legal] right to relief, but it is [morally]
  right that he should have it. A rich man has a [legal] right to
  destroy the harvest of his fields, but to do so would not be
  [morally] right.”

  61. “Goodness in actions is like unto straightness; wherefore that
  which is done well we term right.”

  62. “Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right, So be thy fortune
  in this royal fight.”

  63. “He Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right.”

  64. “That which is consonant with equity, or the light of nature;
  that which is morally just or due.”

  65. “Right conduct; a just and good act, or course of action;
  anything which justly may or should be done.”

  66. “Wrest once the law to your authority; To do a great right, do
  a little wrong.”

  67. “Too fond of the right to do the expedient.”

  68. “With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”

  69. _The_ right; the cause of truth and justice.

  70. That which is proper for or incumbent on one to do: one’s duty.
  (Obsolete.)

  71. The standard of permitted and forbidden action within a certain
  sphere. (Obsolete.)

  72. “Obedience to or harmony with the rules of morality, justice,
  truth, and propriety.”

  73. “Acting in accordance with the highest moral standard; free
  from guilt or blame.”

  74. “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is his
  name.”

  75. “I have made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood,
  though free to fall.”

  76. “Right reason: that which recommends itself to enlightened
  intelligence: some inward intimation for which great respect is
  felt and which is supposed to be common to the mass of mankind.”

  77. To be in the right; “to have justice, fact, or reason upon
  one’s side.”

  78. In prepositional phrases, with, by, of right; properly, with
  reason, justice, etc.

  79. To have a right. To have reason or cause; hence, to come near,
  have a narrow escape from (_sic!_); e. g., “I’d a good right to be
  run over by the train this morning.” (Colloquial.)

  80. “Divine right of kings.”

  81. “Right way; the way of moral excellence or spiritual
  salvation.” “But you are a presbyterian...?” “I am, sir; praised be
  the light that shewed me the right way!”

  82. Of persons and dispositions; disposed to do what is just.

  83. Of belief; orthodox, true. That which ought to be accepted or
  followed.

  84. To do justice to; to relieve from distress; to vindicate; often
  used reflexively.

  “So just is God, to right the innocent.”

  85. To do right; to act according to the “law or will of God.”

  86. To feel right toward a person; to be either kind, or
  sympathetic, or to cooperate with him.


[16] We cite here:

  87. “The first place is yours, Timothy, in _right_ of your gray
  hairs.”

  88. “I have a perfect _right_ to grieve over him.”

  89. “She has a _right_ to be admired, for she is beautiful.”

  90. “Not only is she a peeress, but she has fourteen thousand a
  year in her own _right_.”

  91. “Put your bonnet to the _right_ use; ’tis for the head.”

  92. “Why do you twist words out of their _right_ use?”

  93. “Mr. _Right_” “Mrs. _Right_,” the destined husband or wife.

  94. “That part of the quarry given to the hounds as their share or
  due.”

  95. “A stag’s full complement of antlers, consisting of the brow,
  the bay, and the tray.”

  96. “To do one _right_” to pledge one in a toast. (Compare: “_faire
  raison à_.”)

  97. “The _right_ word is always a power, and communicates its
  definiteness to our actions.”


[17] For example:

  98. “I should have been a woman by _right_.”

  99. “The lady has been disappointed on the _right_ side.”

  100. “If he should offer to choose, and choose the _right_ casket,
  you should refuse to perform your father’s will....”

  101. Idiomatic colloquial phrases expressing satisfaction or
  approval: as “Your conduct and dress are all _right_.” “He has done
  it all _right_.” “Are you ready? All _right_, go ahead.”

  102. To set _right_; to adjust or correct something out of order.
  “Your mother’s hand shall _right_ your mother’s wrong.”

  103. In a satisfactory or proper state or order: “It’s a snug
  little island, a _right_ little, tight little island.”

  104. Skilfully performed, correctly done: “The sum is not _right_.”
  “The drawing is not _right_.” “Nothing goes _right_.”

  105. “To _rights_,” properly, fittingly, as, for example, “She put
  the room to _rights_.”

  106. “I put him _right_ on the matter,” that is, corrected or
  directed him, or both.

  107. The safe, advantageous, appropriate, or desirable side of
  anything, as, “A widow on the _right_ side of thirty.”

  108. Fitting, proper, appropriate, exactly according to what is
  required or suitable, as, “Things of the _right_ size.”

  109. The outward, front, or most finished surface of anything, as,
  “The _right_ side of a piece of cloth.”

  110. In good health or spirits, sound, comfortable, or sane, as:

    “An old uncle of mine who isn’t exactly _right_.”

    “He is not in his _right_ mind; he is talking nonsense and is
    stark mad.”

    “The heart’s aye the part aye

    That makes us _right_ or wrang.”

    “‘Oh,’ said Mr. Winkle the elder, ‘I hope you are well, sir.’
    ‘_Right_ as a trivet, sir,’ replied Bob Sawyer.”




CHAPTER VI

THE MEANING OF THE WORD “WRONG”

  “The human mind is capable of having very many perceptions, and the
  more capable, the greater the number of ways in which its body can
  be disposed.” SPINOZA, “Ethics,” Part II, Prop. 14.


Lexicographers are wont to state that “wrong” is the opposite of
“right” in all of its principle senses, but as can be seen at a
glance from the appended array,[18] this statement cannot be taken
to imply that any such extensive list of significations as we
exhibited in our analysis of “right” can be reproduced here. Indeed,
in what respect “wrong” is the antonym of “right,” or, in other
words, how far this pair of terms illustrates the law of reciprocal
innervation, can be seen only from a detailed comparison of the two,
as follows:—

              RIGHT                               WRONG

  Class A.

  The word “right” as
  descriptive of certain
  mathematical relationships
  and physical functions.

      Sub-class I.

  “Straight,” (a word in
  current usage)                  negated by “Crooked,” Ex. I,
                                           (obsolete).

      Sub-class II.

  “Direct”                                 No antonym


  FOOTNOTES:

  [18] As follows:


    1. Crooked, twisted, or wry. (Obsolete)

    2. Disordered, not properly adjusted, as in the expression: “I’ve
    heerd my aunt say as she found out summat was _wrong_ wi’
    Nancy as soon as the milk turned bingy.”

    3. Incorrect, or uncorrected; that is, not according to
    requirement, intention, purpose, or desire, as _wrong_ ideas,
    _wrong_ courses, the _wrong_ font of type, etc.

    4. Esthetically undesirable or unsuitable, as,—“You have put the
    _wrong_ side of the cloth outermost.”

    5. Erroneous or mistaken belief or assertion.

    6. “In the _wrong_ box” (slang), in an awkward situation,
    mistaken.

    7. Perverse, wilfully mistaken or erroneous. (Cf. “evil.”)

    8. Unjust action; violation of obligation or propriety; a tort.

    9. Harm or “evil” inflicted; damage or detriment suffered; an
    injury, mischief, or hurt; pain imparted or received.

    10. To be “in the _wrong_”; to be mistaken, to act or think
    incorrectly or unjustly.

    11. “To have _wrong_”; to be mistaken; to act erroneously or
    unjustly.

    12. “To have _wrong_”; to suffer injury; e. g., “Cæsar has had
    great _wrong_.”

    13. “To put in the _wrong_”; to represent erroneously.

    14. “To go _wrong_”; not to run smoothly, as of machinery.

    15. “To go _wrong_”; to go astray from the intended direction.

    16. “To go _wrong_”; to do “evil.”

    17. To “_wrong_”; to treat unfairly, unjustly, or harmfully;
    to oppress, offend, or injure.

    18. “To _wrong_”; in an old nautical sense, to take the wind
    from the sails of a ship which is sailing in line with another to
    windward.


      Sub-class III.

  “Immediately”                      No antonym

  Class B.

  “Right” as descriptive of
  the method (or object)
  by which the desired end
  can be obtained                 negated by Examples 3 and 5;
                                     but only if we override
                                     the objection that “right”
                                     here usually refers to one
                                     specific method or object,
                                     while “wrong” can refer
                                     to any one of a number
                                     of unspecified things.

  Class C.

  “Right” as descriptive of
  any statement that reports
  the facts; of any
  opinion or judgment that
  is correct; and of any
  person who judges,
  thinks, or acts in accordance
  with the facts or
  the truth about a matter        negated by Examples 3, 5, 7, 9,
                                     10, and 11, except for the
                                     difference just previously
                                     mentioned, and omitting
                                     examples 31-35 inclusive
                                     on p. 80.

  Class D.

  “Right” as the distinctive
  epithet of the hand
  which is normally the
  stronger                          No antonym


  Class E.

  Legal “rights”; those
  claims and interests the
  establishment and protection
  of which may be secured
  by force and even
  violence                        negated only with respect to
                                     some particular cases of
                                     “right” by Examples 8,
                                     9, and 17.


  Class F.

  Moral “rights”                  negated by Examples 7, 8, 9, 10,
                                      11, 13, 16, and 17; but
                                      only in the same way that
                                      moral “right” is incompatible
                                      with legal “right.”


  Class G.

  Unspecified and unrestricted
  liberties and
  privileges                      negated restrictively by the single
                                      example of No. 18.


  Class H.

  That which is most convenient,
  desirable, or
  favorable; conforming to
  one’s wish or desire; to
  be preferred, etc.,             negated by Examples 2, 4, 6, 9,
                                      10, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

  Class I.

  “Right” signifying very,
  in great degree                   No antonym

This comparison obviously reveals no basis for the statement that
“wrong” and “right” are complete antitheses to each other, at least
in the fine sense that _up_ is the opposite of _down_, _in_ of _out_,
or _east_ of _west_. So that, if we accept the word “right” as
descriptive of a behavior situation in which the dominant feature is
the controlling and directing of human energies, the employment of
technique to further man’s purposes, or the attainment of any “good”
whatsoever, the word “wrong” cannot,—either according to the detailed
list of its uses just presented, or according to the above scheme of
its logical relationship to “right,”—be said to be the true antonym
of that word. The law of reciprocal innervation does not, in its
integrity, apply here.

How then shall we explain the fact that people so habitually say
and feel that “wrong” is the opposite of “right,” if it cannot
be admitted that antagonistic muscles are always employed in the
thoughts and the acts to which these two words refer? Perhaps the
following interpretation will answer. Logicians are accustomed to
say that any universal proposition, any sweeping statement, such as,
“Every swan is white,” or “No aliens need apply,” is contradicted
by the admission that one single exception is to be allowed. But
obviously, such logical contradiction, such admission of a lone
but effective exception, is not equivalent to granting that “No
swans are white,” or that “Every alien is requested to apply.”
Nevertheless, the tradition among logicians is that with the granting
of one such exception, the sweeping statement originally made is
held to be untrue, and hence, false. In physiological terms (than
which there are none more fundamental), contradiction is for the
logician equivalent to a partial but effective inhibition of any
fully developed action-tendency. When Plato would say, “You may
all now come in to dinner,” but is deterred by seeing Diogenes
muddying his feet in order to tread the more scornfully on the
clean banquet floor, Plato’s action-pattern of wholesale, cordial
invitation is suddenly interrupted. And, _so far as Plato’s emotions
are concerned_, the need to make one important exception in his
invitation, is very much like having to turn the whole company out
of doors. This tendency for an emotional repugnance to blot out all
sense of proportion is clearly illustrated in certain oft-repeated
fables. The story of the involuntary guest who had not on a wedding
garment, of the ninety and nine sheep, and of the rich young man are
cases in point. Similar examples may be found in the behavior of any
household. The vexed hostess is heard complaining that one little
_faux pas_ on the part of her serving-girl “completely spoiled the
whole evening.” The sweet young thing whose lover arrives a quarter
of an hour later than his appointment accuses him of being elsewhere
enamoured to stay. The wife whose husband forgets only one of her
twenty birthdays since their marriage often finds it impossible to
overlook the single, unhabitual fault. It is not that such people
crave or dote on perfection; they do nothing of the sort: it is
only that their behavior mechanisms are unable to readjust quickly
to another stimulus than the one which they have expected, and this
failure to readjust releases energies by way of the viscera instead
of along other and more pacific pathways.

All this has an important bearing on the meaning of the word
“wrong.” We saw that this word has only 18 significations, as
compared with the 114 significations of “right.” We also saw that
it is only partially antagonistic to the concept to which it is
commonly opposed. And it has further been revealed that our customary
logic makes a single exception the grounds for an assumption of
contradiction. On the basis of these observations, then, we may
declare that “wrong” refers to some very special behavior situations
where human energies cannot be controlled and directed as desired,
where the employment of technique to further man’s purposes has been
hindered, and where “good” cannot be obtained. This, however, is not
equivalent to saying that “wrong” is the antonym, the unqualified
contradictory, of “right,” any more than red is the opposite of blue,
or coffee the opposite of tea.


_A Physiological Warrant for Ethical Optimism_

A question of considerable importance both in physiology and in
ethics arises when we ask why the concepts “right” and “good” have
so many more significations than do “wrong,” “evil,” and “bad.” We
have already emphasized the relation between speech and conduct
sufficiently to indicate that upon the answer to such a question
something essential for a technique in ethics depends. A word can
have a great number of significations only by its being employed in a
great variety of situations, and this means that very many different
specific responses are implicit in the use of our most comprehensive
concepts. Contrariwise, with a word of fewer significations, fewer
such responses are implied. Now we have already cited the fact that
“good” and “right” refer primarily to outgoing (extensor) reactions,
and that “wrong,” “evil,” and “bad” signify withdrawing (flexor)
reactions. Are we, then, summarily to conclude, without any further
knowledge of the body’s mechanisms, that since we seem to use our
extensor system in a more diversified manner than our flexor system,
the muscular equipment of the former is superior to that of the
latter?

If we do so conclude, we shall be in error. It is the opposite
that is nearer the truth. Both larger and stronger, and, on the
whole, more easily educated muscles exist in the flexor than in the
extensor system. The innumerable capacities of the half-closed
hand are representative of this superiority. Still more important,
however, is the fact that the flexor system is practically the
dominant system in the human body. The hinges of the knee, hip,
shoulder, elbow, wrist, and jaw are more often, more strongly, and
more readily closed maximally than they are expanded to the full.
Besides, occupational postures are almost universally crystallized
withdrawing responses. Where, then, shall we look for the answer to
our question?

We shall look directly at the behavior of the organism as a whole.
While it is admitted that flexor actions are stronger, more numerous,
and more universal than are extensor reactions, yet when we consider
how the flexor reactions dispose the body toward its environment,
we shall at once have light on this curious problem. For the effect
of such reactions is to cut off the body from a large part of the
environment, and consequently to reduce the possibility of effective
contact with it. Stooping, crouching, bowing the head, and lowering
the eye are significant examples of flexor responses which reduce
the span of perception, while every man knows that activities of
the opposite character allow a greater number of stimuli to come in
contact with his eyes and his ears. Consequently, even though flexor
actions will always be in the majority, extensor actions have the
advantage of providing the conditions under which a greater variety
of stimuli can be presented to the organism. This is the same as
saying that the open-minded person necessarily becomes discriminative
and exploratory, while the opposite type is left to stew in his own
juice. The flexor type of man is, indeed, in the end reduced to
contacts with his own body, while to the extensor type of man his
body is only one of the many sources of motivation, the rest being
in the external environment. It seems thus to be primarily due to
the very mechanics of the organism that the words “right” and “good”
have a greater variety of significations than have the words “bad,”
“evil,” and “wrong.”

One additional word, however, can still be said. As we have already
indicated, these three so-called negative ethical concepts are all
descriptive of behavior situations in which thwarting and inhibition
are dominant symptoms. Henceforth, however, thwarting and inhibition
will be understood as temporary interruptions of an outgoing reaction
which would have eventuated had the environment contained the
stimulus to which the organism was attuned to respond. As we say in
common speech, a desire is not satisfied by being denied, and from
our every-day experience we know that great aggravations produce as
much scheming as do our easiest successes. He who casts his eye over
the numerous significations of our two positive ethical concepts
will now realize where much of the adroitness and sagacity which
characterizes them originates.

In these two simple facts, namely, that extensor actions bring more
of the world of action within our range, and that even the thwarted
man imaginatively explores the environment to find substitute stimuli
to release his energy upon, we find the reason why man has more uses
for the words “right” and “good” than he has for the words “bad,”
“evil,” and “wrong.” And with this we achieve by a purely empirical
and anti-supernaturalistic method a physiological warrant for ethical
optimism. If anyone is looking for a “higher” truth, let him ponder
this one.




CHAPTER VII

“VIRTUE” AND “VICE” AS FUNCTIONS OF THE ORGANISM


  “In nearly all these philosophic discussions of ethics one has
  somehow the haunting sense of a wrongness of direction. Virtue
  is somehow imposed from above, it is descending upon us. And the
  unfortunate part of this is that it has to descend very low indeed
  before it reaches us; and when there, it has lost the buoyancy
  wherewith to lift us up.”

  EDWIN HOLT, “The Freudian Wish.”


In the foregoing analysis of the five most frequently used ethical
concepts we have had to feel our way rather carefully, inasmuch as
a completely new path was being cut through the tangle of human
experience; henceforth, however, our task will be somewhat easier,
since we shall now be able to apply the truth we have already
discovered in the remainder of our investigations. Directly, then, we
shall proceed to ask what another pair of ethical antonyms, namely,
virtue and vice, signify in terms of our physiological functions.

It will be recalled that our first five ethical concepts were rather
largely employed to point out objects and relationships in the
external environment. It is common to speak of _good_ and _bad_
automobile tires, of the _right_ golf club to use near a bunker, of
the _wrong_ side of a sheet of drawing paper, and of the _evil_ that
men do which lives after them. When, however, we take up the study,
first of “virtue” and “vice,” and later on, that of “conscience,”
“duty,” and “freedom,” we are no longer to be primarily concerned
with things outside of the organism, but rather with processes
going on within it. Significantly enough, this deepening of our
absorption into the field of ethics involves a further penetration
into the realm of physiology. Thus in a curious and unforeseen way
our fundamental thesis with regard to the close relationship between
physiology and ethics obtains additional support. Consequently, we
are not to turn suddenly from objective to subjective ethics, as
has usually been the case when the five concepts we are forthwith
to analyse have been discussed; on the contrary, just as we began
by defining ethical values in terms of human activities, so shall
we continue until we have made an end. And although it is commonly
asserted that the deepest meanings are _inner_ meanings, yet in a
universe that has neither an inside, nor an outside, nor an edge,
such a figure of speech simply betokens an introversive tendency on
the part of him who uses it.

Herewith, also, the need to combat another equally stultifying
tendency is manifest. I refer to the proclivity of all second-rate
minds to reify abstract terms. “Virtue” and “vice” have been so
reified, as have likewise “conscience,” “duty,” and “freedom”
to such an extent as to make it almost impossible to get a fair
hearing for any one who wishes to discover the sources from which
these concepts have been derived. It is admitted, of course, that
the evolution of man has been greatly hastened by his ability to
make and use abstract terms; but when a man uses an abstract term
without knowing or caring from what sources it has been derived, he
is manifesting little more than a desire to escape from reality.[19]
Indeed, it might be said that unless the use of abstractions assists
us in dealing more effectively with concrete persons and things, it
is time to regret that language has been universally acquired.

The terms “virtue” and “vice,” therefore, instead of being treated
as abstract entities which existed even prior to man’s advent on
the planet, and which will survive his leave-taking of it, will be
here regarded simply as words by which a man describes the behavior
of himself and of his fellows. And, as was the case five times
previously, our definitions of these particular concepts will be
the result of a search for the greatest common divisors of all the
particular virtues and vices respectively.

Strangely enough, however, no complete catalogue of either the
virtues or the vices exists. Moreover, every list which the
different philosophies and religions furnish reflects a different
bias or determining tendency. One need only to scan the Platonic, the
Aristotelian, and the Christian inventories[20] in order to verify
this remark. The determining tendency thus revealed turns out upon
analysis to contain two elements:—first, the desire to reduce the
essential virtues to the smallest number possible, and second, the
inclination to rank them from the highest, or supreme virtue, to the
lowest. Such a procedure as the latter,—that of building the edifice
of virtue down from the top,—is, in our estimation, no part of a
scientific method in ethics. Neither does it tell us what _a_ virtue
is. Besides, as might be expected from such biased and provincial
system-making, what one philosophy or religion calls a virtue, may
be classified by another as a vice. Witness the ambiguous status of
_humility_ as treated now by the followers of Nietzsche, and again
by the early Christians. Perhaps, however, such ambiguities may be
traced to the fact that the term “vice” is of uncertain etymology,
while no such perplexity arises concerning the origin of the word
“virtue.”

This lack of unanimity or completeness in the various invoices of
virtue is not in any way fatal to our purpose. In spite of special
emphases philosophies and religions may exhibit or insist upon, every
particular virtue is undeniably _some quality, trait, or performance
which is admired or esteemed_. Taking this description as our
point of departure, let us first consider what sort of traits and
performances have been thus commended, after which we shall be able
to discover to what an extent virtue and vice are contradictory. For
it is by no means obvious at the start that they are true antonyms.

Let it be recognized, then, that the original signification of
virtue refers to the so-called manly or noble qualities of bravery,
valor, daring, courage, and the like. From this it is inferable
that just as _might_ and _right_ were found to have much in common,
so do virtue and physical power. Perhaps the biologist would call
this phase of virtue a manifestation of positive thigmotaxis, that
is, the tendency to face and fight against physical obstacles. We
might also call these manly or noble qualities the _spectacular_
virtues, since he who displays them is always subject-matter for the
dramatist, whether a man exhibit his valor in the midst of a crowd on
Broadway, or alone in the fastnesses of the Yukon. How far this sort
of virtue can be attributed to the dumb animals has not yet become
part of ethical inquiry. In Plato’s Dialogue “Laches” Socrates argues
that the virtue that is strength, in so far as it pertains to human
beings, contains an intellectual element that is wanting in the lower
animals, however pluckily they may defend their young against an
intruder. Nevertheless, sympathetic and careful observers of animal
behavior are becoming more and more convinced that the defence which
such a bird as the penguin makes against the egg-eating skua-gulls is
just as courageous an act, and therewith just as virtuous, as that
of a weak nation against a mighty invader. Reduced to its lowest
terms, every act of bravery is the same: it is only the interests
involved which make the sacrifices of Regulus and Andreas Hofer seem
fundamentally different from those of dumb animals at bay before the
merciless hunter. But evidences of a growing doubt on this point are
manifest today in the fact of our awarding hero-medals to dogs and
horses in the same manner as we award them to men.

A second class of traits which have been traditionally commended
includes such things as caution, probity, temperance, sobriety,
honesty, and the like. These virtues are at once seen to lack the
theatrical or spectacular quality which attaches to displays of
physical courage or intrepidity. They might, therefore, perhaps
be called the _unobtrusive_ virtues. It is not to be understood,
however, that these unobtrusive virtues require any less physical
energy than do those with which they have just been contrasted. To be
sure, the energy expended is on the whole less suddenly released, for
it may involve far more work to acquire the habitual trait of honesty
than to be gallant for an hour or so on the field of battle. Perhaps
it is due to the recognition of this fact that today raw physical
fortitude is not the first association which the mention of “virtue”
calls up in our minds.

A third use of the term “virtue” signifies any inherent property
capable of producing certain effects, in which connection it
particularly refers to the medicinal efficacy of drugs distilled from
plants. This sort of virtue is _good for_ something, and is usually
regarded as life-enhancing.

Finally, this concept appears in certain familiar phrases, such
as “by virtue of,” “in virtue of,” and the like, where it usually
connotes _strength_, or _efficacy_, or even _reason_, and _right_.
Thus we see that the word “virtue,” like the other ethical concepts
we have analysed, loses almost all of its specificity when it enters
into idiomatic phrases.

These four classes exhaust the uses to which this concept has been
put. What, then, shall we declare to be the common element in them
which we may call the essence of virtue with respect to human beings?
In giving our answer, it is necessary to call attention to the fact
that our third use of the word “virtue” (signifying the medicinal
efficacy of drugs) will occupy a minor, or even negligible place in
our definition. As for the rest, seeing that the virtues are one and
all traits which are commended or praised, they may be considered as
action-patterns or action-tendencies which human beings manifest. We
can also go further than this. Employing the physiological principles
hitherto used in defining ethical concepts, it appears at once that
the word “virtue” means that _energy is either being mobilized or
expended to obtain what the organism considers to be a dependable
good_. This can also be stated in another way, by saying that those
human traits which have been expressly denominated virtues are some
of the attributes of what is commonly called a “good” man. (See Ex.
21, p. 38.) In this restricted sense, furthermore, the _virtuous_, or
_good_, man is the one whose acts are called _right_. And this leads
us at once to a very important question.

Why is it, we ask, that so few of the innumerable human traits that
are commended every day—not only by words of praise, but also by
that subtler and more emphatic sign of unconscious imitation—have
been chosen as virtues, while so many others have been left out of
the list? The four cardinal virtues,—courage, prudence, temperance,
and justice,—exemplify this high degree of selectiveness, while this
inventory omits all mention of human skill in any form, in spite of
the fact that when the list was made by Plato, human skill in the
fine arts had reached one of its limits of excellence.

The answer here sought is highly significant as a comment upon
ethical speculation in a pre-scientific age. The list of cardinal
virtues is merely an index of the bias of its maker with regard to
the outstanding problems of his own time. These four traits which
Plato elevated to the top of his system are not, then, to be taken
as an indication of what Plato saw most frequently exhibited by the
citizens of Athens, but, if anything, just the contrary. Anyone who
has read Plato’s “Republic” will recall that his aim was to describe
an ideal, that is, a not-yet-existing state, and that these four
virtues were lauded, not because they had been found in actual life
to be either sufficient or practicable, but rather because they
seemed to Plato to fit into his ideal scheme. Now it is seldom denied
that courageous men, prudent men, temperate men, and just men are
to be soundly commended, or do we in any sense deny it here. Our
only question is, Should these four traits be called the cardinal or
supreme virtues before the whole list of commendable traits has been
scrutinized? The answer which the scientifically trained mind gives
is in the negative. Something else, however, is even more important
for the foundation of an empirical ethics, namely, the question:
Are those traits which we _openly_ praise to be regarded, in the
study of actual conduct, of prior importance to those which, by
being unconsciously imitated, receive our silent, and therewith more
significant approval? This, however, is the same as asking whether
man has ever dared to face with courage and sincerity the real
ethical problem.

A glance at another well-known list of selected virtues reveals even
less of a tendency toward the statistical method in ethics than even
Plato showed. We refer to those significantly unobtrusive virtues
which characterized the ethics of primitive Christianity, and which
were doubtless derived from the Beatitudes. Readers of the English
Bible may recall that the epithet “blessed” was employed by Jesus to
describe (1) those who were poor in spirit, (2) those who mourn, (3)
the meek, (4) those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, (5)
the merciful, (6) the pure in heart, (7) the peacemakers, (8) those
who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, (9) those falsely
reproached, (10) the poor, and (11) those who weep, which persons, in
the average, are an entirely different class of organisms from those
whom Plato would have called “blessed,” that is, commendable.[21]
There is evidence to believe that this novel emphasis upon a certain
type of person,—a type hitherto openly unpraised in the ethical
thought of man,—gave rise to the tendency to elevate such traits as
humility, kindliness, self-denial, meekness, patience, and the like,
to a supreme position in the minds of primitive Christians.

However, this class of virtues is again not to be considered as
indicative of the only traits which people commend, either openly,
or by more subtle and significant signs. It is even safe to say
that no group of Christians, be it either small or large, existing
in a remote or a modern generation, were ever naïvely satisfied,
or brought by dint of training, to act on the principle that these
unobtrusive traits were the chief virtues. The reason for this
plainly lies in the one-sidedness of such traits. Paulsen, in
his “System of Ethics,” points out that whereas the Greeks found
positive values in (1) scientific knowledge, (2) esthetic and other
pleasures, (3) temperance, (4) courage, (5) justice, (6) honor and
high-mindedness, (7) bodily cultivation, (8) economic solvency, (9)
family life, and (10) the state, the early Christians considered
almost none of these things to be worth their while. And whereas it
would be more or less insulting to the memory of Jesus to call the
doctrines of the early Christians an extension of his teachings,
yet we can say that the unobtrusive virtues which early official
Christianity sought to emphasize, are one and all withdrawing
reactions, and as such must be rejected as the sole basis of a
scientific ethics.

We reject them because they are not based upon a sufficient
consideration of the total needs of man’s body,—that on which his
life and mind depend. Man has not only a flexor system, but an
extensor system of muscles as well, and it must be plain from the
discussions in the preceding chapters that both of these systems
are ethical mechanisms. However, official Christianity has often
seen fit, by its exclusive emphasis upon those virtues which involve
withdrawing reactions, literally to declare that the extensor system
shall be denied a stimulus. The Greeks were far wiser; for even
though they may have failed to achieve a conception of virtue which
took into consideration the wholesome balance between flexor and
extensor activities, they nevertheless did not err in propounding a
doctrine that ignored the simplest principles of human behavior.

As a matter of historical record, primitive Christians did not
succeed, by the exhibition of these unobtrusive virtues, in making
themselves either inconspicuous or immune to their persecutors. If
anything, indeed, they were all the more actively hounded because of
their queer traits. And why? For the simple reason that the typical
Christian virtues, being withdrawing reactions, and consequently
allied to and confused with the attitudes of secretiveness and
dissimulation, led the Roman officials quite reasonably to suspect
that the early Christians were dangerous to the state. And it can
be substantiated that primitive Christianity was far from being
a patriotic movement. In those days, at least, the man who did
not retaliate a blow was regarded first with amazement, then with
contempt, then fear, and finally with the most diabolical hatred.
Such a silent man might know something very important, might have
knowledge of a world-wide insurrection ready to break tonight. Tear
him to pieces, then; he shall at least not maintain that exasperating
smile! How is such a meek man “blessed”? It may be true that our
sentiments can partially apologize for a system of ethics based upon
the functions of the flexor system alone, yet the sense of proportion
which we inherit from the Greeks demands that we strike out on new
paths which are not littered with the blunders of the past.

We must not forget to say, however, that one reason why these
unobtrusive virtues have been given a chief place, not only in
official Christianity, but also in Mohammedanism and Buddhism, is
because of the simple, even though disquieting, fact that the flexor
system is by nature stronger than the extensor system. Man, then, is
by endowment more inclined to be humble and secretive than to be bold
and frank, since the larger and stronger and more often activated
muscles of his body are those which produce withdrawing reactions.
That is also why man is prone to introspection, and to cultivate an
inner life, and why also, to borrow a phrase of Dr. Morton Prince,
he is frequently more interested in his own “mental mud-puddle”
than in the external environment. Again, this physiological fact is
responsible for each man having his own house, his nest, into which
he retreats to escape from the novelties he can no longer adjust to,
and where he may “bathe his receptors in comfort-giving stimuli.”
And so, one is finally tempted to say that the unobtrusive virtues
have obtained such a vogue because they are the only ones which over
sixty per cent of mankind can appreciate and will ever really attempt
to achieve. Perhaps, also, it is for the same reason that today the
word “virtue” signifies almost exclusively _chastity_, a trait of
character and an action-pattern which any physician will tell you is
dependent for its existence and maintenance upon the contractions of
very powerful flexor muscles.

The upshot of all this discussion is that from the study of man’s
body as an ethical machine, it appears that he who would formulate
a list of the chiefly desirable traits or virtues should first
carefully consider the total needs of the organism. This new
catalogue of virtues will be based upon the realization that man
possesses both a flexor and an extensor mechanism. We know already
that many ailments of the body are traceable to a lop-sided use
of it, by which is usually meant the acquisition of chronic
fatigue-postures in the flexor muscles. Indeed, chronic postures are
recognized to be of such paramount importance, that experts have
been employed to devise adequate stretching exercises (actuating the
disused extensor system) in order to restore the organic balance
of a nation. Moreover, just as the hygiene of the body depends
upon a liberal use of all of its muscles, so likewise the ethical
balance of the organism can be maintained only by the cultivation
and commendation of a sufficient variety of traits to provide an
outlet for all the action-tendencies which man naturally possesses.
Virtue, then, we may henceforth regard as being based directly upon
our physiological needs, and not upon the assumption, so frequently
employed in the past, that ideals must be unattainable in order to be
respectable.

Moreover, a strictly natural science of ethics will have a regard for
the fact of individual differences among men, and, recognizing that
blood-pressure, metabolism, talents, and capacities differ so widely
as to make it impossible for any one trait to be the “highest” virtue
for all persons, it will place the emphasis solely upon the needs of
the individual case. Already this development has become wide-spread.
The juvenile courts, the Society for Mental Hygiene, the National
Child Welfare Association are all examples of an ethical technique
based entirely upon the sciences of physiology, psychology, and
medicine. This emancipation of ethics from official religion is one
of the most momentous events in the history of civilization.

And finally, we may say that it is time to recognize that since
each one of the “seven ages of man” has its own particular mental
and physical characteristics, so likewise does each of these ages
have its own particular virtues. Too long have parents whispered
themselves into the belief that the child ought to strive to copy
the man, for the result of this unconscious egotism has only forced
such parents to discover that when their child has grown up, they
immediately wanted him to be an infant again! But it is becoming
recognized among those who learn to look at the world without such
an exaggerated self-preference, that every phase of life,—infancy,
puberty, youth, manhood, middle-age, maturity, and senescence,—brings
with it ever new ethical opportunities in the appearance of traits
peculiar to each phase, and that it is in the development of these
various potentialities into their own natural end-product that the
ultimate ethical values consist.


_Is Vice the Opposite of Virtue?_

It now remains to be seen what the word “vice” means, first by
scanning the uses to which it is popularly put, and second, by
reference to its physiological implications. Accordingly, then, we
find the following general classes of things called vices.

Any fault, mistake, or error may be called a vice, as, for instance,
a “vice of method.” This signification is practically identical with
one use of the term “bad.” (E. g., bad workmanship, defective, below
par; sometimes called poor or worthless.)

Likewise, any imperfection, defect, or blemish falls under this
category, as “a vice of conformation,” “a vice of literary style.”
Here again this use of the concept may be identified with some of
the significations of “bad” and “wrong.” These first two classes of
vice may be related to one another in the sense that the first is
the cause, and the latter the effect,—the erroneous (vicious) method
producing the blemish (vice) in the product.

In our third class are found the significations most commonly implied
by this concept today, namely, those habits or actions contrary to
public policy, and especially those which arouse violent censure.
Such are gluttony, indolence, mendacity, drunkenness, debauchery, and
the like, which might also be included in any complete list of the
things which are called “bad,” “evil,” and “wrong.” The peculiarly
specific element which enters here, however, is the damage to the
organism which these vices entail. Sometimes, also, this concept is
used in the expression, “an age of vice,” a phrase which denotes
a period of time in which these censured practices are extremely
prevalent, or given particular notice.

The term “vice” is also used in describing animals not thoroughly
trained, as when it is said: “That bird-dog has the vice of mouthing
the quarry,” or “I must break this horse of his vice of cribbing.”

Formerly, indeed, some inherited bodily defects were spoken of as
“constitutional vices,” but this use of the term is now rare.

It can be seen at once that while virtue and vice are popularly
regarded as opposites, no amount of stretching applied to either of
these concepts will make it the true antonym of the _other_. It is
idle for anyone to remark that they ought nevertheless to be regarded
as diametrically opposed; empirically they are not, as the following
analytical table plainly shows:—

            VIRTUES                        VICES

  Valor, courage, intrepidity,     No antonym, except in the
  (strength). The spectacular      rare cases where cowardice
  virtues.                         may be regarded as vicious.

  Caution, probity, temperance,    Negated by mendacity,
  sobriety (and the unobtrusive    drunkenness, and debauchery,
  Christian virtues).              but not precisely; nor
                                   popularly by gluttony and
                                   indolence.

  Medicinal efficacy of drugs.     No antonym.

  The phrases, “by virtue of,”     No antonym.
  “in virtue of,” etc.

  No antonym.                      Fault mistake, error.

  No antonym.                      Imperfection, defect, or
                                   blemish.

  No antonym.                     The faults of untrained
                                  animals.

  No antonym.                     Constitutional vices.

How, now, shall we proceed to construct our definition of the ethical
concept “vice”? It will be recalled that we used the term virtue to
describe a situation in which energy was being either mobilized or
expended to obtain what the organism considered to be a dependable
good. Does vice imply the opposite of this? Hardly, for it must be
admitted by the uncensorious observer that many of even the most
violently condemned actions could be described as part of somebody’s
program to attain a durable satisfaction. The glutton, remembering
once more how comfortable a full belly makes him feel, may gorge
himself without stint; and even if he has been warned that diabetes
and gout are likely to be the final results of such persistent
devotion to the pastry and the roast, he may still pursue these foods
with avidity, cheerfully and hopefully making himself an exception
to the general rule of impending disaster. In the same way, the
lusty pursuer of sex enjoyments may be dispassionately regarded as
planning and achieving his own type of satisfaction, and while he
may often “in a cool hour” be aware of the likelihood of entangling
alliances, yet even his self-censure is not guaranteed to keep him
from mobilizing his energy for the attainment of his chosen, private
“good.”

Once more, then, we realize that “virtue” and “vice” are not true
antonyms. We saw this to be the case with “good” and “bad,” and
likewise with “right” and “wrong.” It is only when these pairs of
terms are used with the most severely restricted denotation, that
is, with a provincial bias, that their opposition and contradiction
appears. Such bias is also shown, when it is said that the glutton
and the debauché “really know that they shouldn’t” indulge themselves
as they do, a statement which signifies something like this: If these
men who do what I call “wrong” were only to act as I direct, they
would not be censured. Obviously so, but what a host of fallible
assumptions this involves! It is merely ignoring the problem, and
such a treatment furnishes no hint as to its solution. One begins
to doubt the validity of all praise and blame as profitable ethical
instruments. Besides, the appeal to self-censure, as employed in
the above case, is, in the end, relatively inefficacious in actual
practice, and is hence illogical as a basic principle in ethical
theory. Indeed, it is idle to say that we all know what we should
do; if we had that much information, we would act upon it, for the
will and the intellect, as Spinoza remarked, are one and the same.
The great need in ethics is to get right down to the empirical facts
of conduct and to let them teach us, rather than to hide the facts
behind a screen of pious insincerity. Importunate chiding may be a
traditional tool of morality, but it does not contribute anything to
the establishment of an ethical science.

Consequently we shall have to reject any definition of the vices
which goes no further than to describe them as those actions which
some observer regards as unprofitable. It may be that such a
definition superficially fits a great many cases, but great danger
lies in accepting it without scrutiny, since it tends to imply
that ethics is merely a study of _opinions_ about conduct, and not
of conduct itself. Now, no other science is a study of opinions,
not even the normative sciences of bridge-building or landscape
gardening; and ethics is no exception to this general rule. Moreover,
since we do not know of any absolutely wise observer to whose opinion
we can appeal in every doubtful case, a true definition of vice has
not yet been achieved.

However, if we bear in mind that praise and blame, or commendation
and censure are always relative to certain environmental conditions,
and if, furthermore, we can discover what they really imply, we shall
doubtless be able to arrive at a conception of virtue and vice that
will square with the observable facts of human conduct. And the first
point to be emphasized is that whenever these concepts are used,
some standard seems to be implied. What is this seemingly hidden
standard, this presupposed line, which, especially in the case of
the vices, one is forbidden to cross under pain of censure? Sometimes
it seems to be a line drawn within a family, sometimes within a
neighborhood, while often it is confined to a class or profession,
and again it is delimited by a national culture. Would it not seem
that every such tacitly assumed standard is created by the relatively
unconscious judgment of the group in the very effort to have a group,
the members of which recognize each other as belonging to it? In
other words, are not all such standards a function of the desire of
the group to employ the pronouns “we” and “us” significantly? This
is not oversimplifying the matter, since the use of such pronouns
implies much more than is commonly realized. Indeed, when man says
“we” instead of “I,” he indicates that a point in evolution has
been reached where a similarity of predicaments has produced a
similarity of aims. To fight a common foe, to till a common land,
and to keep a common eye upon strangers are one and all actions
implicit in the establishment of group standards. And even though
these standards are often ill-defined, and frequently neglected by
certain individuals within the group, nevertheless they remain as
a background of reference (in strict mechanistic terms, as an old
habit-posture), whenever there is any danger felt lest the word “we”
should become meaningless. Danger felt by whom? Particularly, we are
obliged to say, by the most conservative members of the group, for
be it remembered that praise and blame, and reward and punishment
are insisted upon most violently by undiscriminating persons. Such
persons, it seems, are most sensitive to the waxing and waning of
certain benefits which others have achieved for them, and which they
regard as valuable to retain and dangerous to lose.

If anyone wishes to know what such benefits are he has only to
recall what traits his own group calls virtues and vices, and to
ask in every case just what they imply in terms of the needs of the
group which sanctions or condemns them. For example, valor, courage,
and intrepidity, together with the other spectacular virtues, have
certainly been commended because they supply two very obvious and
well-nigh universal group needs. The first is a common, stalwart
defence, and the second is a healthy progeny. Cripples and deformed
persons have never been objects of admiration or praise. As for the
unobtrusive virtues, many of these have likewise been commended by
such a group as feels itself beset or insecure on account of its
inability to compete with the strong on their own terms, and this
group has adopted them in a semi-paradoxical attempt to acquire
solidarity. To turn at once to the other side of the picture, we
find that the vices of gluttony, drunkenness, and lechery have been
condemned not only because they effeminate and debilitate, and
thereby undermine the defence-power of the group, but also because
they tend to reduce the capacity of the group to create a sound
and fertile offspring. This is doubtless why certain congenital
abnormalities were formerly spoken of as “constitutional vices.” As
for the word “vice” being sometimes applied to botchy work, incorrect
methods, and the faults of untrained animals, we can see how in
special instances a group might regard these things as peculiarly
detrimental to its solidarity. Contrariwise, the “virtue” of a
medicinal plant might, under the harassing circumstances of a plague
or an epidemic, be the chief cause of even a nation’s concern.

In thus defining virtue and vice in terms of the assets and
liabilities of the group, what becomes of our previous attempt to
define virtue in individualistic terms? The answer is that this
previous conception remains as a necessary complement to, and check
upon, group intolerance. For while the desires of the group and
those of the individual may sometimes clash, they do not need to be
considered as basically or essentially opposed to one another. The
historical fact is often manifest that when group solidarity tends
to produce mediocrity, there is a sudden overt demonstration of
individualism. Our own generation shows an example of this type of
reaction. When, again, extreme individualism fails to yield group
assets, the conservative tendencies begin to reassert themselves more
powerfully once more. Yet it is doubtful whether exactly the same
type of conservatism is ever repeated, since the individualism which
it seeks to counteract is, in succeeding generations, different from
the type which preceded it.


_Is Virtue Its Own Reward?_

From the foregoing it is apparent that the ethical concept “virtue”
has two alternative interpretations. One of these involves the
commendation of the group on the basis of what its members feel
to be required for the maintenance of its traditions. The other
interpretation is based upon what the individual mobilizes and
expends his energy to obtain. Which of these is superior to the
other, that is, which would survive in case of mutual conflict, only
the last volume of recorded history will relate. What is more of a
real problem to us is the question, commonly asked, Is virtue its own
reward?

This curious question involves the philosophical theory of internal
relations,—a theory of very doubtful validity. The statement that
virtue is its own reward is equivalent to the assertion that virtue
is valuable in and for itself. But if so, then virtue is unique,
and this again is doubtful, for whether we observe the individual
devoting his energies to the attainment of some dependable good, or
the group commending him for it, it appears at once that virtuous
actions are never undertaken without some hope of reward either
in the shape of praise or of tangible results. Upon hearing this,
some will groan, claiming that a good man should act ever and only
on principle, and leave the rest to the gods. And yet nobody ever
did so. Moreover, it is plain that the truly virtuous man, whether
acting within the taboos of his clan, or striking out on entirely new
paths after a “good” that he could depend securely upon, received a
three-fold reward of a very substantial nature. He achieved power, he
attained wisdom, and he secured peace; and these rewards, moreover,
in the degree to which they were gained, automatically thereafter
became the measure by which the dependability of any good could be
estimated. And we also venture to say that the same criterion could
be employed in determining to what extent any particular trait of
character was a vice.

Even more than this, however, can now be said. For such a criterion
as is here suggested has significant implications for the human
body,—that upon which life and mind ultimately depend. Experiments
in psychology and psychiatry have revealed that traits of character
are more than skin-deep and brain-deep; indeed, they are more than
muscle-deep: they are as deep as the vital organs themselves. Even
more than this is apparent, for these same sciences have demonstrated
that not only is such a trait as anxiety just another name for a
chronic muscular tension, but also that many diseases are, if not
caused, at least abetted by what we think, how we act, and what
feelings we cultivate. In more precise terms, the mechanisms of
thought and action, being partly identical with the mechanisms of
locomotion and metabolism, can produce either a hygienic or an
unhygienic effect upon the whole structure of man’s organism. And in
this fact, I think, we can find an acceptable basis, even if a new
one, for the distinction between virtue and vice.

This basis we propose is not altogether a novelty to keen students
of human nature. We know that the normal, healthy and successfully
adapted human individual is characterized by a relaxed and resilient
condition, not only of his superficial or locomotor muscles, but
also of the muscles of his alimentary tract. Both his voluntary
and involuntary systems are constantly in a state of readiness to
perform their necessary functions, and they also return to this
condition after any series of actions has been performed. Such a
man possesses aplomb, and is an example of the healthy Greek ideal
of a sane mind in a sound body. In striking contrast to such a
normal, resilient state, there are frequently found two other organic
conditions which are readily delineated. The one is called muscular
flabbiness, characterized by a powerless or a-tonic state of the
muscles of either the voluntary (or teachable) and the involuntary
(or unteachable) systems, or both. A man in this a-tonic plight is
incapable of vigorous, coordinate action, and his muscles do not
manifest a normal readiness to respond to successive stimulations.
The other abnormal condition, at the opposite pole from this one, is
the one involving chronic muscular tensions, a condition which may be
compared to the state of a steel spring which is always kept under
severe strain, and which is never released far enough to give the
metal a chance to recover from the stresses it undergoes. Highstrung,
over-anxious, jealous, irascible people illustrate this type of
organism with exactness.

The ethical implications of the foregoing must have already been
guessed. Is it not possible to define the virtuous man as the
relaxed, resilient, coordinate individual, and the vicious man as
either the muscularly flabby, and therewith the lazy, spineless,
procrastinating, lecherous man; or else as the abnormally hypertonic
organism, whose muscles constantly pay dividends of wrath, and whose
grudges and malice are carried even through his slumber? If so,
there should be no paradox implied in speaking of virtue and vice as
functions of the human organism.


FOOTNOTES:

[19] Compare the expression, “And now abideth faith, hope, and
charity” with “And now there are faithful men, hopeful men, and
charitable men.” Only the latter of these statements has any real
meaning.

[20] Plato’s list is very brief, and his virtues correspond to the
three parts of the soul as he conceived it. Self-control, courage,
and wisdom are the three virtues which characterize the desire, the
will, and the reason respectively, while the supreme virtue is a
harmony or health of the soul.

For Aristotle, virtue is found in a moderation between extremes. For
example, the virtue of courage is a mean between cowardliness and
rashness. Others of his virtues likewise derived are: temperance,
liberality, high-mindedness, mildness, friendliness, candor,
urbanity, and justice.

The Christian virtues, while never stated in systematic form, are
typically represented by humility, kindliness, self-denial, meekness,
patience, temperance, and, perhaps, other-worldliness.

Comparatively few ethical writers attempt to give a list or
scale of virtues and vices, and some of them ignore the question
completely. Martineau, in a somewhat successful attempt to free
himself from an irreconcilable dualism in ethics, presents a scale
of traits beginning, presumably, with vices (e. g., censoriousness,
vindictiveness, suspiciousness), and ending with virtues (compassion,
reverence, and veracity). In the application of this system, the
chief question is, not what is bad or what is good, but simply, which
trait is better and which worse than another.

[21] It is to be observed that Jesus was much more specific and
empirical than either Plato or St. Paul, since in his treatment of
this phase of the problem of conduct, Jesus often described the
situation concretely, e. g., “those persecuted for righteousness’
sake,” rather than by employing, as did Plato and St. Paul, abstract
nouns, such as “courage,” “charity,” and the like. But it must also
not be forgotten that of all the ethical teachers of antiquity,
Socrates alone consistently stuck to the concrete realities of ethics
and constantly admitted the size and difficulties of the problems
involved.




CHAPTER VIII

IS CONSCIENCE ALWAYS A PATHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON?

  “When the rookery is pretty well filled, and the nest-building
  is in full swing, the birds have a busy and anxious time. To get
  enough of suitable small stones is a matter of difficulty, and
  may involve long journeys for each single stone. The temptation
  is too strong for some of them, and they become habitual thieves.
  The majority remain stupidly honest. Amusing complications result.
  The bearing of the thief clearly shows that he knows he is doing
  wrong. He has a conscience, at least a human conscience, i. e.,
  the fear of being found out. Very different is the furtive look
  of the thief, long after he is out of danger of pursuit, from the
  expression of the honest penguin coming home with a hard-earned
  stone.

  “An honest one was bringing stones from a long distance. Each stone
  was removed by a thief as soon as the owner’s back was turned. The
  honest one looked greatly troubled as he found that his heap didn’t
  grow, but he seemed incapable of suspecting the cause.

  “A thief, sitting on his own nest, was stealing from an
  adjacent nest, whose honest owner was also at home, but looking
  unsuspectingly in another direction. Casually he turned his head
  and caught the thief in the act. The thief dropped the stone and
  pretended to be busy picking up an infinitesimal crumb from the
  neutral ground.”

  “The Heart of the Antarctic,” SIR ERNEST SHACKLETON, Vol. II, p.
  253 (Section on the Adelie Penguin, by James Murray, Biologist of
  the Expedition).


The word “conscience” was perhaps originally synonymous with
consciousness, but it gradually came to mean _self_-consciousness
of a very special type, namely, the silent commendation or censure
which a man may bestow upon his actions or his projects. This word
“conscience” replaced the Middle English term _inwit_,—a term made
famous in the title of a book (circa 1340) called the “Ayenbite of
Inwit” (that is, the “Again-bite or Remorse of Conscience”). The
concept of conscience has played an important part in modern ethical
theory, and it is supposed by many persons to be the foundation of
all morality. What place it deserves to hold in a constructive,
mechanistic ethics can be determined, however, only by careful
analysis. So many extravagant claims have been advanced in its behalf
as to make one suspect that none of them are true. Things which
people have “always heard lauded and never discussed” are only with
difficulty saved from oblivion when intellectual revolutions have
altered the emphasis which man puts on the values of life. It was
thus with the word “soul,” and with the word “immortality,” and it is
likely to be the same with the word “conscience.” At least it will
be an advantage to look at the philosophical pedigree of this once
mighty shibboleth.

It may be surprising to learn that as far as ethical theory is
concerned, the doctrine of an infallible conscience is the product of
no less recent a time than the XVIII century. The Conscience-theory
is the philosophical property of such men as Butler, Clarke, Kant,
Shaftesbury, and Reid, rather than of their predecessors. Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679), who founded critical English ethics, flatly
refused to give to the then immature concept of conscience any
recognition; indeed, he declared it to be nothing less than a
“disease” of the state, and one “of those things that weaken or
tend to the dissolution of a commonwealth.” In Chapter XXIX of the
“Leviathan,” he states the current notions of conscience: (1) “That
every private man is judge of good and evil actions,” and (2) “That
whatsoever a man does against his conscience is sin.” Both of these
notions Hobbes condemns. “For,” he observes with characteristic
sagacity, “a man’s conscience and his judgment is the same thing, and
as the judgment so also the conscience may be erroneous.”

This emphasis which Hobbes placed upon the untrustworthiness of
private ethical judgments was fatal to his purpose. His successors
began straightway to reanimate that which he had sought to bury once
and for all, and, whether on account of their temperamental antipathy
to the intellectualism of Hobbes, or because they were honestly
seeking for some valid ethical principle, they asserted, first
timidly, and later with a surprising boldness the very thing which
Hobbes had sought especially to efface from the docket of ethical
discussion.

We find this reaction beginning in Shaftesbury (1671-1713). Albeit
this author gives a minor place in his ethical theory to the notion
of a “moral sense,” or rational, reflex affection which approves only
socially beneficial actions, yet the positive emphasis which he puts
upon it is nevertheless significant. The affirmation proved to be
contagious, for those who followed Shaftesbury immediately elevated
conscience to a central position in their systems. We refer here to
Butler, Clarke, Kant, and Reid, who are known as intuitionists.

According to Butler (1692-1752), conscience is a “principle of
reflection” and not a mere _feeling_. And this principle of
reflection is for him a natural or inherent property of man’s
mind. It is the principle by which a man “approves or disapproves
his heart, temper, and actions”; it is a faculty which “tends to
restrain men from doing mischief to each other, and leads them to do
good.” Be it noted here that Butler says nothing about the so-called
infallibility of conscience, nor does he argue that it must be the
same for all persons. Moreover, he gives a somewhat analytical
definition of it, and is willing to grant that its function is
utilitarian.

The old belief in the certainty of conscience now begins to reappear.
It was Clarke (1675—1729) who attempted to defend it by the use of
a mathematical analogy. We are all familiar with the axiom (or
truism) that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to
each other. If now we keep the general form, but alter the substance
of this axiom, so that it reads: “Whatever I judge reasonable or
unreasonable for another to do for me, that by the same judgment I
declare reasonable or unreasonable that I in the like case should do
for him,” we have Clarke’s Law of Equity. To an arm-chair philosopher
such a statement sounds fairly cogent, but its empirical value is not
thereby guaranteed. As every student of psychology knows, individual
differences, individual preferences, and the capacity of individuals
by this method of give-and-take are completely ignored in the
formulation of this law. Besides, Clarke’s conception of conscience
may be said to contain a hint of ethical solipsism, or the theory
that oneself is the only accurate authority on social justice. We
need not pause longer over the insuperable difficulties of such a
point of view.

It is, however, in the writings of Kant and Reid that the
conscience-theory attains its modern, sentimental form. In his
“Metaphysic of Morality” Kant (1724-1804) makes the following
straddling assertion: “Nothing in the whole world, or even outside of
the world [sic!] can possibly be regarded as good without limitation
except a _good will_.” But this is not the full extent to which this
philosopher presses his claims. For he continues, “A man’s will is
good, not because the consequences which flow from it are good, nor
because it is capable of attaining the ends which it seeks, but it is
_good in itself_, or because it wills the good. Its intrinsic value
is in no way increased by success or lessened by failure.” From all
of which Kant concludes that “As the will must not be moved to act
from any desire for the results expected to follow from obedience to
a certain law, the only principle of the will which remains is that
of the conformity of actions to universal law. In all cases I must
act in such a way that I can at the same time will that my maxim
should become a universal law.” This last statement is the famous
categorical imperative.

At first glance this appears to have profundity, but it turns out
even upon the slightest analysis to be quite the opposite. For
example, the first passage quoted (“Nothing ... can be regarded as
good without limitation except a good will”) contains assertions
that nobody can know enough to make. It is ritualistic philosophy.
Moreover, the expression “good will” actually does (Kant to the
contrary, notwithstanding) put a logical limitation upon the concept
_good_, just as “good” cat, or “good” razor does. Besides, the term
“will” or volition always refers to a phenomenon which is strictly
dependent upon circumstances, for a man wills _only when_ there
is something to be possessed. These are not all the errors which
Kant here commits. His attempt to explain why the good will is good
(itself a statement exhibiting the fallacy of ambiguity) reveals
that Kant was a very poorly equipped psychologist. I ask you, how
many persons is it possible to find,—indeed, is it possible to find
one single man except among the psychopathic cases,—who would ever
be stimulated to live,—much less to subscribe to Kant’s theory,—if
his successes or failures had no effect whatever upon his future
volitions? We do not imply by this rhetorical question that every man
is, or can be, or should be immoderately egoistical, but only that
Kant had no insight whatever into the psychological problems involved
in ethics.

Consequently, the categorical imperative as a deduction from Kant’s
first principles is to be regarded as completely erroneous. How,
indeed, can a man act in such a way as to make the maxim of his
action a universal law? Suppose we offer a simple example. When I
am hungry, and food is before me, I eat it. Does this imply that my
will to eat becomes a universal law, namely, that all the hungry
should eat? But when I learn of the many hungry who are unable to
eat, my will to eat illustrates not a universal law, but an extremely
particular law, that is to say, the law that _if_ I am hungry, and
_if_ food is supplied, and, furthermore, _if_ I am willing to risk
that food, then, but only then, do I eat it. There seems to be no way
to establish the validity of Kant’s imperative, regardless of the
direction one’s thought takes. To cite a different example entirely,
let us imagine a hungry man who, having cornered all the food of
his tribe, eats it on the assumption that every other man would do
the same thing if he were similarly fortunate. Here the categorical
imperative appears in such a light as to shock its author profoundly.
And yet in strict logic, this interpretation is a valid one for an
intuitionist ethics. Do we wonder that Levy-Brühl speaks of “the
ambiguous and bastard concept of the moral law,” when they who
attempt to state such a law have neither comprehension nor patience
enough to discover the simplest principles of human conduct?

It is, however, in the “Essays on the Active Powers of Man,” by
Thomas Reid (1710-1796) that the commonplace notion of conscience
receives its principal philosophical support. Concerning this
“moral sense,” as Reid calls it in reminiscence of Shaftesbury, the
following formidable assertions are made. In the first place, “It is
without doubt far superior to every other power of the mind.” In the
second place, “The testimony of this moral sense,” like that of the
rest of the senses, “is the testimony of nature, and we have the same
reason to rely upon it.” In addition, just as the sense of vision
is fundamental for space perception, so “The truths immediately
testified by our moral faculty are the first principles of all moral
reasoning.” Reid would also have us note that this reasoning is not
inductive, but deductive, for he says, “The first principles of
morals are the _immediate_ dictates of the moral faculty.”

The outstanding fault of such a theory is that it assumes that every
name we choose to manufacture has a reality corresponding to it.
This is the fallacy of hypostatization, to which all idealistic
philosophers are addicted. Granted that it is true, as Butler says,
that we approve and disapprove of some of our actions, yet this does
not imply that there is a transcendent faculty within us which we
are at liberty to substantialize as Conscience or a Moral Sense.
Such language is merely noun-worship. It is granted that the words
“moral” and “sense” have each separately a meaning, but it does not
follow that the compound term “moral-sense” must therefore have one.
Moreover, all of these intuitionists are wilful and unperspicuous
rationalists, demanding a fundamental principle in ethics _before_
they have employed any induction or experimentation that might help
them to frame such a principle correctly. They are willing to do no
hard work, and to perform no crucial tests in order to see whether
their guesses are facts or fictions. To complete our criticism, we
must not omit to state that Reid’s elevation of conscience to a place
among the senses merely reveals the extent to which he was willing
to go in his defence of the testimony of the senses in general
against the idealists of his age. His use of the “moral sense” was
a debater’s trick. The high esteem in which conscience was held by
his antagonists tempted him to turn one of their own weapons against
them.

We can now better understand the statement previously made that the
personification of conscience was the peculiar artifice, the “useful
dodge,” of a certain school of ethical thinkers in the XVIII century.
Consequently it is erroneous to suppose that the commonplace view
of this phenomenon has always held undisputed sway over theoretical
ethics. It had no place whatever in the minds of Greek ethical
writers. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and their contemporaries
founded the science of ethics without even dreaming that there was
a conscience. Epictetus, Epicurus, and Marcus Aurelius showed no
poverty of constructive thought for the lack of it. Even Helvetius,
a contemporary of the intuitionists, rejected it as spurious when he
wrote: “He who will warrant his virtue in every situation is either
an impostor or a fool; characters equally to be mistrusted.”

Most people who have heard the name of John Locke will recall his
arguments against the assumptions of the moral intuitionists in
those passages where he combats the theory of innate moral ideas.
According to Locke, all such ideas would have to be (1) independent
of geographical location and climate, (2) independent of the age of
the person and of his training, and (3) recognized by all persons as
fundamental. But none of these conditions are found to be satisfied
by anyone who makes the shortest pilgrimage through the world in the
search for these statistics. And consequently the intellectually
honest Locke rejects the philosophical theory of conscience,
independently of his recognition of the facts of self-approval and
self-disapproval.

It remained, however, for John Stuart Mill to foreshadow the
beginning of the end of this fantastic theory of the moral faculty in
Chapter III of his “Utilitarianism.” He writes:—

  “The internal sanction of duty, whatever our standard of duty
  may be, is one and the same—a feeling in our own mind; a pain,
  more or less intense, attendant on violation of duty, which in
  properly cultivated moral natures rises, in more serious cases,
  into shrinking from it as an impossibility. This feeling ... is
  the essence of Conscience; though in that complex phenomenon as it
  actually exists, the simple fact is in general all encrusted over
  with collateral associations, derived from sympathy, from love,
  and still more from fear; from all the forms of religious feeling;
  from the recollections of childhood and of all our past life; from
  self-esteem, desire of the esteem of others, and occasionally even
  self-abasement.”

This analysis of Mill’s reveals that what the intuitionists loosely
termed _conscience_ is a far more complex phenomenon than they had
suspected, and with this revelation the whole logical structure
of intuitionism breaks down. For if conscience is not the simple,
innate, infallible principle or faculty which the intuitionists
postulated it to be, the deductions they made from this hypothesis
become more and more untenable the longer they are scrutinized.
Mill’s analysis of the psychological factors in conscience, together
with Locke’s discovery of the cultural and geographical limitations
of any moral sense make it necessary to define this ethical
phenomenon in purely empirical terms.

Such a definition as we seek, however, could only be obtained by
securing an elaborate census of cases in which the words “conscience”
or “moral sense” were used. The census-taker would have to roam
over the whole earth, ask questions all day long, and even become
an eavesdropper at night, in order to gain the information he
desired. Even this method would hardly be exhaustive, since perhaps
far more “pangs of conscience” are felt than are ever expressed
in language; and so our census-taker, were he as thorough as we
might desire him to be, would have to be equipped with a sort of
ultra-stethoscope,—one that could elevate a blush into an audible
phenomenon,—in order to return with a full and complete report. The
lack of such exhaustive statistics must, of course, be permanent;
not only for want of census-takers, and for want of accuracy and
sincerity on the part of those giving their introspection, but also
because the concept of conscience may be slowly evolving, so that the
end of the census might not harmonize with its beginning.

Granting, indeed, that such an evolution exists, it does not
now appear to be either uniform or universal. For while, as we
have recently shown, the concept of conscience first attained a
philosophic importance in the XVIII century, and was thereafter
variously modified and developed, yet the popular notion of a moral
sense,—of “this deity within my bosom,” as some have even expressed
it,—has actually degenerated into something unworthy of a place
among the positive ethical values. Our quotation from James Murray’s
account of the behavior of the Adelie penguin is extremely pertinent
here. “_The fear of being found out_” is, we venture to say, the very
nucleus and core of the consciences of the majority of men. And while
without doubt some forms of fear are well-grounded, as, for example,
the farmer’s fear lest the oncoming storm wash out his seedlings, yet
when fear tends to limit prudence, or take the place of prevision,
the organism in which that fear arises is sub-normal and unsound.
Conscience, then, in so far as it is identical with this degrading
emotion of fear, and in so far as it begins and ends in a withdrawing
reaction, is nothing but a blight.

Yet something more remains to be said about the popular conception
of the word “conscience.” This word, as commonly used, denotes an
emotional state which, far from being in harmony with the ideals of
the group, often denotes the very opposite condition. It is hardly
necessary to remark that the fear of being found out does not imply
loyalty to the group any more than it implies the recognition of
that which makes for power, wisdom, and peace in the individual.
Indeed, conscience as popularly experienced, involving as it
does anxiety, trepidation, self-abasement, and a host of other
introversive tendencies, is an ethical liability, both to the group
and to the individual. The man who has transgressed the will of the
group is surely not a bit better off because of his fear of being
caught, nor can he regard his fear, even though he has already been
tortured by it, as giving him any right to a mitigation of the
penalty. As for himself, the conscience-stricken individual may have
so long squandered his energy in his effort to conceal his offence
as to bring him very close to ethical bankruptcy. The picture we
draw is not extreme,—it can be duplicated in every neighborhood,
if not in every family on the globe. For conscience, as it is
usually experienced, is a painful, withdrawing reaction, implying
negation rather than affirmation, incoordination rather than skilful
prevision, and morbidity instead of frank, overt, constructive
action. Accurate indeed is the phrase, “The pangs of conscience,” as
a description of the organic turmoil incident to this condition of
mal-adjustment. Can it not, then, be truthfully said, that in the
cases just described conscience is a pathological phenomenon?

Thus to discover that the popular form of conscience implies a vice
rather than a virtue is not, however, enough. We wish also to know
how and why this form of conscience has attained so great a vogue.
And here again we touch upon matters of the greatest importance for
a mechanistic ethics.

Conscience as a form of fear is so strong and so wide-spread for
two reasons. The first is already familiar to us, and is briefly
repeated. It is that the flexor system is originally stronger than
the extensor system. And so in the great majority of men whose
natures are less evolved, fear is almost a daily experience,—not
only the fear of nature and of the unknown, but also the fear of
the group by whose tolerance they exist. Moreover, sentiment and
not knowledge is the great group asset, by which we imply no such
educated sentiments as are derived from analytical inquiry, or from
an open search after the facts, but rather that kind of sentiment
which passively bars and actively hinders the enlargement of the
understanding. The group really never explains. When offended, it
simply becomes suspicious, and its gossips freely translate this
suspicion into rumor and inuendo. It is small wonder, then, that the
conscience-stricken individual, as a product of his group, has as
his first, and sometimes his only reaction, the tendency to shrink
and become unresilient when he realizes that his acts, or worse
still, his thoughts, have transgressed the taboos of his tribe. It
is a case of like master, like man; the group does not usually know
what its purposes are, much less does it ask to have those purposes
examined and revealed; and so the conscience-stricken individual,—the
sentimental child of the group,—reacts to his realization of
estrangement from the group in a manner that makes his last state
worse than his first.

This cannot be taken to imply that it is a sign of intellectual
maturity to transgress all the taboos of the group. Yet the argument
still holds that the influences produced by the exclusive use of this
negative form of conscience are baleful. Very early in the life of
the average child the expressions: “Don’t,” “If you dare to do that
again, I’ll whip you,” “What would people say?” and a score of other
negations are employed by his parents and teachers on the principle
that ethical guidance is achieved by such means. As a result, says
Edwin Holt, “The parent has set a barrier between the child and a
portion of reality; and forever after the child will be in some
measure impeded in its dealings” with those things which have become
taboo, always first feeling the prohibition, rather than the urgency
to act discriminatively upon a knowledge which a close contact with
the reality should produce. Such a parent has not “trusted the
truth,” and the final result is that the child has actually become “a
second-rate mind, not in harmony with itself,” since not in creative
touch with the environment.

Even more pointedly John Dewey writes in his criticism of the
doctrine of self-denial. “Morals is a matter of direction, not of
suppression. The urgency of desires cannot be got rid of; nature
cannot be expelled. If the need of happiness, of satisfaction of
capacity, is checked in one direction, it will manifest itself in
another. If the direction which is checked is an unconscious and
wholesome one, the one which is taken will be likely to be morbid and
perverse. The one who is conscious of continually denying himself
cannot rid himself of the idea that it ought to be ‘made up’ to him;
that a compensating happiness is due him for what he has sacrificed,
somewhat increased, if anything, on account of the unnatural virtue
he has displayed. To be self-sacrificing is to ‘lay up’ merit, and
this achievement must surely be rewarded with happiness—if not now,
then later. Those who habitually live on the basis of conscious
self-denial are likely to be exorbitant in the demands which they
make on some one near them, some member of their family or some
friend; likely to blame others if their own ‘virtue’ does not secure
for itself an exacting attention which reduces others to the plane of
servility. Often the doctrine of self-sacrifice leads to an inverted
hedonism; we are to be good—that is, forego pleasure—now, that we may
have a greater measure of enjoyment in some future paradise of bliss.
Or, the individual who has taken vows of renunciation is entitled by
that very fact to represent spiritual authority on earth and to lord
it over others.”

They who wish even a more striking picture of the extent to which
the negative type of conscience degrades the intellect, have
only to consult Alfred Adler’s “The Neurotic Constitution.” If
Dr. Adler correctly depicts the salient traits of the neurotic,
many intuitionists themselves are by implication introverts, and
consequently forfeit their claims to ethical leadership. The neurotic
is described as “a person possessing anxiety,” “the self-sacrificing
virtue,” “a marked sensitiveness,” “an irritable debility,” “an
estrangement from reality,” as well as “a person with a strong
tendency to symbolization,” and a penchant for “guiding fictions”
invented for the purpose of compensating him for his feeling of
inferiority at having lost solid contacts with reality. This, then,
is the success which the conscience-theory has met with at the hands
of scientific experts,—keen and sympathetic observers of the ways of
men.

Such an account of the degeneration of conscience into a
self-annihilating sentiment is, however, only one chapter in the
history of this concept. And while the list of uses to which the
word “conscience” has been put does not furnish as solid a basis
upon which to build a constructive ethical technique as did the uses
of “good,” “right,” and “virtue,” we can nevertheless still find a
positive ethical value for this term. How, then, will this value be
discovered?

It will be found by a study of those persons who have attained the
power to view the world in a purely objective and empirical manner;
of those persons who treat their own and other peoples’ actions
as experiments in the great laboratory of time, rather than as
timid ventures to be apologized for on the slightest provocation;
of those persons who have evolved to that point where their
knowledge determines their sentiments, and not their sentiments
their knowledge; and of those who, having by this means chosen
their dependable goods, learn the right methods to attain them, and
thereafter employ plain judgments of fact in estimating the success
which they acquire and the quality of the virtue which they achieve.
In such persons the positive, constructive, liberalizing type of
conscience exists,—a conscience which, through being built up of
objectively tested judgments, becomes the outstanding ethical asset
of the personality.

This type of conscience is not a myth, for it may be acquired in the
same way as any other skill is acquired. The objective knowledge
which it presupposes can be gained where every natural curiosity
of a child or an adult is developed into a frank acquaintance with
the object of curiosity; where fear is turned into intrepidity by a
bold analysis of its cause and by a frontal attack upon the exciting
stimulus; where one learns that ethical problems are always solved by
forming serviceable habits and never by the cultivation of permanent
anxieties; and where, finally, all the entangling alliances forced
upon one by unprofitable acquaintances are boldly, but politely,
annihilated. Even though many strongly entrenched traditions and
institutions of the world would decay were the type of conscience we
here describe to become wide-spread, yet this cannot deter the wise
man from making it his life work to add as many new names to the
list of those possessing ethical insight as it is within his power to
do. Indeed, whenever this list becomes so large as to be generally
regarded by autocrats as dangerous, we shall have come to that place
in the course of civilization where the first real ethical advance is
to be made.




CHAPTER IX

THE MITIGATION OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN FREEDOM AND OBLIGATION

  “There is a phrase ‘liberty of conscience’ which well expresses the
  modern conception of moral obligation. It recognizes that duty in
  the last analysis is imposed upon the individual neither by society
  nor even by God, but by himself; that there is no authority in
  moral matters more ultimate than a man’s own rational conviction of
  what is best.”

  R. B. PERRY, “The Moral Economy,” p. 34.


“One could scarcely construct a more erroneous view than that every
human being is endowed at birth with the same ‘lump sum’ of freedom,
which remains an inalienable possession throughout life. Our freedom
is not complete, it is in the making.... The process by which freedom
is won is the process of enlightenment. It is the truth that sets men
free, the clear perception of moral relations and moral laws, the
understanding of human nature and its true needs.”

  W. G. EVERETT, “Moral Values,” pp. 358-9.


One of the most revolutionary changes which the scientific study of
psychology has wrought consists in the demolition of all the barriers
which formerly divided the body from the mind. The intellect, once
securely enthroned as the highest faculty in the mental hierarchy;
the reason, erstwhile religiously devoted to the contemplation
of pure truth; and the will, which formerly completed this trio
of sublime, unitary faculties, have, in the unbiased and careful
scrutiny of laboratory science, been shown to be not only highly
complicated processes, but products of experience as well; and not
only products of experience, but functions of brain and gland.
Furthermore, they have been revealed to be not solely functions of a
biological mechanism controlled by external stimuli, but also in a
larger sense they are now regarded as means by which the body of a
man adjusts itself to and gains control of its physical and social
environments. No longer do we ask the old question: “Why has the mind
a body?” but rather, “Why does the body have a mind?” And the answer
is: The body has a mind to enable the body to experiment with its
environment so that when it gets what it seems to want, it can know
that it has really wanted what it has gotten.

Some results of this highly reconstructive iconoclasm upon ethical
thought have already been depicted in the preceding chapters. Here
we are soon to see what effect such a doctrine has upon the last two
ethical concepts we shall analyze, namely, duty and freedom.

As may have already been divined, a mechanistic ethics on its
constructive side does not maintain a pension list for the outworn
conceptions of an earlier day. Consequently, in this place we
shall not ask what used to be thought of the “Freedom of the Will,”
nor shall we quote Wordsworth’s “Ode to Duty” as a prologue to our
theme. For while only a hundred years ago no ethical teacher could
have safely omitted giving great emphasis to the theological setting
of these two concepts, today such a treatment would not arouse the
slightest “problematic thrill.” What used to be called “the Will” is
now an obsolete expression;—indeed, ever since Spinoza wrote, it has
been regarded as a myth. In its stead, we speak of the individual or
particular volitions of men, and we discuss their value in reducing
the gap between our liquid matter and its good. Likewise, what was
once called the lump-sum of our Duty has now become separated and
analyzed into claims, interests, other-regarding sentiments, and the
like, each one of which has a history and a real meaning for our
flesh-and-blood personality.

All such changes, while perhaps highly disconcerting to those persons
who feel that they cannot get along without their “guiding fictions,”
are really signs of a salutary advance along ethical lines. Once it
is realized that what is popularly termed “will-power” is after all
only _skill-power_, and that “moral obligation” should be translated
into _pragmatic urgency_, it will be plain that only clearly-prevised
action-tendencies can properly be called either right or virtuous. It
may be true that many a successful action has been performed in the
name of a fetichistic belief, but who will doubt that an even more
profitable action could have been motivated with less waste of the
body’s energies, had there been correct insight and a frank facing
of the facts. As long as people are afraid of life, so long are they
bound to allege some false cause of their actions. Conversely, as
soon as they realize that they _are_ what they _do_, and whenever
they learn that their ethical books cannot be balanced by drawing on
a phantom bank account, they begin to pile up ethical assets, and to
reduce their ethical liabilities.

From our earlier remark that the science of ethics is primarily
concerned with what _is_ rather than what _ought to be_, it may
be difficult to imagine what place the concept of human freedom
can have in a mechanistic treatment of the problems of conduct.
It might seem easier to foreshadow what will be the fate of the
concept of obligation, especially when we realize that oughting is
always hypothetical, rather than categorical. For every obligation
is specific and particular,—it depends upon conditions, places,
times, and persons, just as does every signification of good and
bad, and right and wrong. There is no general Ought, as our recent
discussion of Kant’s categorical imperative clearly implied. When,
then, we ask from whom or from what obligation arises, what answer
does a mechanistic ethics provide? Some may expect us to make the
traditional answer, namely, that it comes from the group, and that
the _feeling_ of obligation is a variation of the elemental type of
conscience. This sort of an answer is not to be given here. Although
the group largely determines how we shall feel with regard to what
_ought_ to be done, yet the final education of an ethically adult
person leaves him with a different mind on this point. Indeed, it
is our purpose here not only to show that the concept of ethical
freedom is a valid concept for a mechanistic ethics, but also and
more particularly that a true conception of ethical obligation
depends upon the discovery of what ethical freedom implies. That this
involves no paradox will be understood as soon as we comprehend what
it means to say that a man is _free_. Herewith we shall state five
conditions under which freedom of action is guaranteed.

The first meaning of free action is _action that is physically
possible_. I am not now, I never was, and I never shall be free (that
is, able) to walk backward and forward at the same time, or to be
in Boston and New York simultaneously. Neither can I, while kissing
Jennie at her fireside, be also kissing Kate at her doorway a mile
from Jennie’s house. On the other hand, the man who is sound of limb,
sensorially acute, and otherwise endowed with natural capacities, can
be said to be free to employ these capacities whenever and wherever
the conditions provide the opportunity.

Right here we ask whether this first meaning of freedom does not
have an important bearing on the question of ethical obligation. Is
it, indeed, not plain that just as we cannot do what is physically
impossible, so there is no valid obligation under these conditions?
This, however, is something which the intuitionists and the idealists
have persistently ignored, regarding it often as somehow the very
acme of virtue to declare as an ideal of conduct something which
is totally impossible of realization, and thereby fostering the
neurotic temperament instead of ethical enlightenment. Yet it is
plain that if, while being unable to do the impossible, I still am
pathologically anxious about it, I shall succeed only in accumulating
impatience and turmoil, and be forced to get what sour consolation
I can from Schopenhauer, or else to “gnaw the file” in some other
fashion. Moreover, according to a mechanistic ethics, I am an evil
person as long as I waste energy in this fashion, or in demanding
consolation for my erroneous sentiment. Not only am I bound to fail,
and thereby to create discord rather than relieve it, but I am also
losing time and energy which might have gone into more profitable
pursuits. On the other hand, while we do not yet say that we are
under obligation to perform every physically possible action, yet
every valid urgency still lies in that direction.

The second meaning of the word “freedom” is _absence of external
restraints_ imposed by physical obstacles or generated by human
beings. No man is free to act when external hindrances are too great
for him to overcome. Thus while it is possible for a sound man
to walk either forward or backward, he cannot keep on walking in
a straight line if his path is intercepted by the sheer wall of a
hundred-foot cliff, or if some one stronger than himself obstructs
his going. Excellent examples of such thwarting occur in the Greek
mythology of Hades. Tantalus was forever hindered by the gusts of
wind from plucking the fruit from the tree; Sisyphus could not force
the stone over the brow of the hill; and the daughters of Danaus
lost all the water they carried in their sieves. They were not,
therefore, _free_ to perform these actions. They may, it is true,
have everlastingly _wished_ them, but they could not _will_ them.

Nevertheless, while many similar hindrances to human action exist,
such as the friction-hindrance to perpetual motion, and the wall
which kept Pyramus from Thisbe, yet, on the whole, most of the
so-called external restraints are far less serious barriers to
freedom than we realize. This is not only attested by the magnificent
conquests of nature recently made by applied science, but it might
also be deduced from the properties of man’s protoplasm as modified
in his muscular architecture. For protoplasm is liquid, and liquids
flow; and man’s stream of thought as a derivative of his liquid
protoplasm acquires its labile character as a sort of natural
right. Just as a liquid under pressure transmits that pressure in
all directions, so a man who is made of good protoplasm tends, when
confronted by such obstacles as we have just described, to think,
and plan, and experiment, that is, TO FLOW, out of the difficulty.
His neuro-muscular equipment also singularly facilitates the turning
of his wish into a will. Our muscles do not only contract and relax
to produce lever movements in one plane, but they also combine
their movements into pronation, supination, and rotation, and these
synergic actions enable us to explore the obstacle and almost
literally to flow around it. This is also the mechanism by which
we puzzle out any problem. The all-or-none principle makes mental
analysis always possible and often accurate. Applied to Pyramus,
this means that the wall that separates him from Thisbe stimulates
him with her aid so variously that he not only rebels and laments,
but also starts to explore its surface and its possibilities, with
the final result that he vaults it and descends “until he can
come at Thisbe’s lips more directly.” There has always been an
abundance of old saws to encourage the bold and the faint-hearted
to regard obstacles as merely stepping-stones to future success,
but the physiological basis of such maxims we are only beginning to
comprehend. In fine, then, when we speak of a permanent obstacle to
our actions, we mean it only in so far as we do not also imply some
serious deficiency in the quality of our protoplasm.

The relation between this second type of freedom and obligation
is very obviously hinted at by the popular maxims on the theme
of perseverance. Moreover, it is historically demonstrable that
pragmatic urgency usually increases in direct ratio to the ease with
which external restraints can be surmounted. On the other hand,
it is gradually becoming recognized that “there are hundreds of
thousands of human beings who can by no possibility ever do what is
expected of them by society. Society must give over expecting such
things.”[22] Those who have no power to plan, scheme, or supervise,
are consequently not educated enough to appreciate the obligations
which such abilities involve.

We may now consider a third meaning of the concept “freedom.” _It
is exhibited in those actions which we have been so well trained
to perform that they occur without any conscious effort whatever._
Accordingly, the man with training and skill is more free than the
man who lacks these abilities. If the oboist of a symphony orchestra
is too sick to play, only another oboist is free to sit as a
substitute at his desk. A plumber will not do. It will be perceived
at once that many sorts of skill, even though they be the exclusive
possession of one person, may yet be turned to the equal advantage
of a great number of people, making them all co-sharers in his
freedom. By using the skill of the substitute oboist, for example,
both the managers and the patrons of the concert are free to carry
out their wishes. The enormous social advantages of most forms of
skilful technique require only a passing comment. Indeed, what we
call business and trade are ultimately the bargains we make for each
other’s skill. And here again the pragmatic urgency implicated by
this form of freedom is apparent, not only in the sharing of socially
profitable skill, but also in the acquisition of it.

A fourth empirical characterization of freedom may now be considered.
For free actions, in addition to those which are physically
possible, externally unhindered, and within the range of our skill,
are especially _those which some mechanism of the body actually
carries out in the manner in which it was originally set to do
it_. In popular speech this form of freedom is exemplified by such
expressions as, “I was successful,” “I was determined to do it,
and I did it,” or, “The clerk tried to palm off a substitute, but
I persevered in getting the original.” Such freedom emphatically
implies a _continuity in behavior_ which is absent in cases where
the desire is thwarted or suppressed. The physiological processes
which guarantee this form of freedom are interesting to contemplate.
As the wish passes over into will, not only are more and more muscle
fibers involved in the action-scheme stimulated to their maximum
contraction, but also wider and wider synergies of muscular groups
are brought into play, until all the available kinetic energy of the
body is released along the channel of one final common motor pathway.
Moreover, each and every muscle involved in such an action-scheme
stimulates, upon its contraction, a receptor nerve embedded within
it, and these circular reflex stimulations automatically reinforce
the contractions already begun. This is nature’s own contribution to
the unification of our personality in the performance of this type
of free activity. The whole neuro-muscular architecture involved in
such behavior becomes an automatic mechanism for reinforcing the
centrifugal bodily posture, and for providing against the wilting
of any motor discharge in any single muscle due to its prolonged
contraction. Such actions, then, which involve the steady and
uninhibited output of energy that we have described we call _free_.
They are equally manifested by the cat who springs upon and catches
the mouse she has been warily watching, and by the violoncello
virtuoso who scurries safely through the cadenza and arrives at the
_tutti_ without having either produced a “wolf tone” or dropped his
bow. It is such action which is connoted by the popular phrase “free
will.”

The final touch to our delineation of freedom may be added by saying
that _only when a man’s actions result in enlarging his environment,
and in providing him with increasing opportunities for turning his
wishes into wills, is he in the highest sense ethically free_. The
preceding characterizations of the free man were derived from simply
watching him _in the midst_ of any of a thousand activities. This
last part of the picture is obtained by reckoning the permanent
ethical assets which his efforts have provided. These assets are,
moreover, defined in terms of a continuing freedom. For while we are
all in a sense free to do anything within our ability, and for which
there is the time, the place, and the opportunity, yet only under
certain conditions can we follow such an action with another of our
own choosing. The liar, the thief, and the slanderer know very well
to what an extent their putative freedoms produce antagonists of
their own making with whom they must ever thereafter wage a dismal
conflict. On the other hand, the man of frankness and a truthful
tongue, the man who makes fair bargains with the universe, and the
man who can solve his problems without the loss of his own temper or
the respect of other persons, is ipso facto equipped with the ability
to synergize his muscles repeatedly into freely willed activities.
Moreover, while this fifth type of freedom is dependent upon the
presence of the other four, its effect upon them is reflexively
beneficial, in making more actions physically possible, reducing the
external hindrances to them, increasing the skill by which they are
performed, and insuring the continuity with which they are carried
out. Indeed, we may now identify virtue with the attainment of
this last type of freedom, and vice with its loss or decline. Such
activity is also right, and its stimulus is a dependable good.

In thus defining the conditions under which human freedom exists, we
have, I surmise, also discovered the secret of ethical obligation,
of pragmatic urgency. That is to say, whenever an action is possible,
when it is not opposed by restraints beyond a man’s power to
overcome, when he has the skill with which to perform it, and when he
can will it as well as wish it, and when also the performance of this
action increases the range of his effectiveness, then, but not till
then, can it be said that he _ought_ to perform it. The expressions,
“I ought,” or “I should,” henceforth mean: “I imagine that there
would be greater freedom if this course of action which I contemplate
were to be carried out.” Under this new conception of pragmatic
urgency, oughting is neither a _vis a tergo_, nor a _vis a fronte_,
nor yet Somebody’s fiat superadded to the data of ethics, but it is
simply the logical resultant of the conditions of such human activity
as produces dependable goods. We recognize no valid obligations
imposed upon men from above; obligations are rather implicit in any
activity which employs a man’s skill to satisfy his needs at the same
time that it educates his desires.

It is thus plain that there is no fundamental difference between
ethics and any other science. Just as the business of physical
science is to describe the conditions under which any phenomenon
occurs, so the business of ethical science is to ascertain, by a
study of the mechanisms of human behavior, the conditions which
underlie all of our ethical values. Wisely indeed did Protagoras
remark that “Man is the measure of all things,” but it was not until
many centuries after this statement had been made that a positively
constructive interpretation, could be put upon it.


FOOTNOTES:

[22] George Clarke Cox, “The Public Conscience,” p. 25.




CHAPTER X

THE ACQUISITION OF AN ETHICAL TECHNIQUE

  “One of the reasons why pantheistic revery has been so popular is
  that it seems to offer a painless substitute for genuine spiritual
  effort.... When pushed to a certain point the nature cult always
  tends towards sham spirituality.

      ‘Oh world as God has made it
           All is beauty,
       And knowing this is love, and
           Love is duty,
    What further can be sought for or desired?’

  It seems to follow from these lines of Browning, perhaps the most
  flaccid spiritually in the English language, that to go out and
  mix oneself up with the landscape is the same as doing one’s duty.
  As a method of salvation this is even easier and more æsthetic
  than that of the Ancient Mariner, who, it will be remembered, is
  relieved of the burden of his transgression by admiring the color
  of water-snakes!”

  IRVING BABBITT, “Rousseau and Romanticism.”

  “Objection: Will not this end in ethical scepticism? Answer:
  Nothing is further from scepticism than the conception of a reality
  subject to laws, and of a rational action based on the knowledge of
  those laws.”

  L. LEVY-BRÜHL, “Ethics and Moral Science,”
  Table of Contents, p. xi.


  “In the preceding pages we have no doubt often hurt—but we have
  hurt to heal. The good surgeon probes deeply in order that he may
  not have the operation to perform again. Even a minute amount of
  diseased tissues left behind can prevent the return of vigorous
  and creative health. Thus what may seem to the anxious patient
  unnecessary cruelty may be the greatest kindness. A sentimental
  compromise is never welcomed by the mature judgment of the brave
  man. And in this day when so many have willingly given their lives
  for the sake of a human ideal, is it just and right to flinch
  in the spiritual warfare which confronts our generation? We are
  seeking nothing less than a renaissance in which men’s energies
  will be wisely and loyally directed to what is greatly human
  and humanly great. In such a service we must will to be hard on
  ourselves and on others.”

  ROY WOOD SELLARS, “The Next Step in Religion,” p. 211.


Little did Descartes dream that his attempt to find truth by the
method of candid doubting was a sign that human evolution had “turned
a corner,” or that the method he employed was to be the precursor
of an ethical renaissance. Yet the introduction of this one form of
psychological test as a philosophic instrument was an entering wedge
of such power that where great darkness had been, much light was
shed; and where the stolid inertia of many centuries had existed,
movement and life and enlightenment began to appear. But nature is
slow, and always takes plenty of time to play its elaborate game;
indeed, often nature seems to us to proceed by circuitous paths
where we would make an open right of way. However, even though it
was several centuries after Descartes before the first psychological
laboratory was founded, the development of thought toward the
recognition and use of the psychological method was nevertheless
steadily proceeding. Today there is no word we are more wont to
conjure with than the word _psychology_. And even if the foolish
always use it with derision, yet those who are wise know well to what
an extent it is symbolical of a new era of human development, on the
threshold of which era we now confidently stand.

What is this psychological method which has so silently become
established, and what has it to do with the acquisition of an
ethical technique? It is the method of analysis, experiment, and
constructive scepticism, which treats all phenomena objectively, that
is, by leaving out the personal equation, and by asking not how do
we preconceive that things _should_ appear, but only how _do_ they
appear with our personal bias in abeyance.

Such a method, which, by the way, is the essence of psychological
science, is very difficult to achieve. Indeed, for many it is
constitutionally impossible. The history of physical science records
how great were the struggles of men to become objectively-minded even
toward their external environment, struggles which have only recently
become successful. Witness the fact that for many centuries the
alchemists sought for the philosopher’s stone, a mineral which they
falsely preconceived to have the power of transmuting lead into gold;
witness the fact that the science of anatomy was for generations
denied its birth on account of pious prejudice and taboo; and witness
even today that many physical objects are said to be _bewitched_
when they fail to operate as expected, and that luck at cards is
still stoutly affirmed by otherwise estimable people. Indeed, there
are thousands of farmers in the United States who appeal to the
methods of divination in planting their crops and shingling their
houses. Consequently, it is plain that if the power to become
objectively-minded toward the physical world is so rarely attained,
it is even more difficult to become detached and un-self-conscious
toward the mental and social behavior of our fellow-men.
Nevertheless, this method of detachment, of looking at old things
with new eyes, is just what hundreds of teachers of psychology are
training thousands of students every year to employ; and its salutary
effects are being felt in every corner of the civilized world.

To some persons all this may come as a surprise, since the criticism
has already been publicly uttered that the study of psychology
tends to make one incurably introspective. On these grounds alone
the self-styled hard-headed business man often hastily classifies
psychology among the foibles of women and poets. This, however, is
simply another error due to hostile preconceptions. For even though
some psychologists have fallen into the practice of cultivating
Psyche for her own sake, yet their method originated from distinctly
other motives. Psychology, it is true, when cultivated by persons
constitutionally possessed of an introversive bias, may not always
eradicate that bias, any more than will the putting of an army rifle
into the hands of a timid man make him forthright into a model
top-sergeant.

In another strain, it is sometimes alleged that psychology is simply
a new head set upon the body of ancient Roman stoicism. But it
must be remembered that the detachment which the Stoics cultivated
lacked all the elements of a scientific inquisitiveness. It was
marked chiefly by a sweet indifference and unconcern, traits which
were derived from the belief that Reason which ruled the world was
interested only in the headlines of universal news. The psychologist,
far from being indifferent to the most transient phenomena of
human experience, regards them most steadfastly. Nevertheless, he
endeavors to maintain an equality of interest in all human affairs,
knowing full well that as soon as he takes sides, he loses his
sense of the proportions of the whole. Unlike the Stoic, he admits
the reality and inevitableness of pain and anguish; yet while he
studies these phenomena, he keeps a sharp lookout lest his personal
equation obtrude itself in the shape of sympathetic sorrows,—these
he steadfastly refuses to add to his report of the objective facts.
Nevertheless, it is conceivable that had not the elements of
stoic indifference been a basic capacity of human protoplasm, the
psychological attitude might not have been evolved.

Curiously enough, psychology has been both defended and attacked
on the basis of its supposed kinship with certain doctrines of
Jesus, as, for example, the Golden Rule. No psychologist is greatly
interested in any debate carried out on these lines. When Edwin
Holt’s “The Freudian Wish” first appeared a few years ago, some
caustic reviewer accused its author of “having gotten religion in
the form of Freud.” It is doubtful whether anyone, be he Christian
or non-Christian, would regard such a remark either as a help or
a hindrance to the acceptance of psychology as a contribution to
the technique of ethics. As far as the Golden Rule is concerned,
its relations to scientific method may be briefly indicated by
saying that while this maxim can be interpreted to imply a kind
of other-regard which seems to possess the elements of scientific
detachment, yet other things must also be considered before final
judgment is passed. For this hypothetical imperative,—“_Whatsoever ye
would_ that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them,”—is only
possible of application among equals of intellect or of sentiment,
and it can be used then only by a forehanded and judicious person,
one with discriminative sympathies, and able to mature his wishes
into wills. Psychology ventures to make no universal rules of
conduct, especially since it must first take an inventory of human
nature in order to find out what rules there are to which man will
give his uncoerced and unconscious loyalty.

Let it not be assumed, however, that the psychologist urges an
ethical moratorium while he is pursuing his search into the secret
places of human nature. The method of scientific detachment has
itself provided such an insight into the problems of conduct as to
make any such assumption absurd. He who catches a glimpse of what
it means to understand his fellow-men, rather than to regard them
primarily as creatures to be classified as either good or bad,
virtuous or vicious, begins to grow into an ethically adult person.
He at once loses that ancient, clandestine, stultifying tendency to
obtrude his own bias into his social environment, and he no longer
finds his chief comfort in adoring those who are most like unto
himself, or in mentally lynching in advance those who rub his ego
the wrong way. Scientific neutrality hath also its victories. The
application of the psychological method to prison reform, where
the criminal is regarded as an effect as well as a cause of social
mal-adjustments, has already been acknowledged as humanly great. Is
it not possible that we see in such phenomena the passing of an age
in which maxims were necessary, and the birth of an era where the
educative methods of wise and kind men will take their places?

The further drift of this would be hard, indeed, to conceal. Ethics
as a branch of psychology is inevitably bound up with the abolition
of praise and blame, and of reward and punishment, as the chief
themes in the judgments we pass upon our fellow-men. The tendency to
make such bi-polar judgments usually implies a prejudice inherited
from a pre-scientific age. With this change, of course, many of the
traditional moral categories will be replaced by the true categories
of the understanding,—categories derived from psychological insight
into the ethical potentialities of the natural man. Even now,
however, such a replacement is in progress, the results of which are
neither small nor unimportant.

We refer here to the wide-spread use of trait analyses, both in
business and in education, by which a man is estimated on the basis
of his tendencies, capacities, and powers. His body is measured for
its strength and resiliency, and where defects are discovered, a
regimen leading to the re-education of his physique is prescribed.
His mental developments are tested, and the common attributes of
the human mind, such as sensory acuity, retention, discrimination,
and the like, are estimated and recorded. The special talents he
possesses are revealed by performance tests, and his hitherto
undeveloped potentialities are induced to betray themselves. The
emotions from which he either profits or suffers are discovered by
methods adroitly devised for the purpose. Likewise, the individual’s
sociability,—whether it be merely gang-attachment, or a zest for
cooperative endeavors,—is made a matter of sympathetic study; while
still other bases upon which a man may be estimated are employed in
the attempt to help him find out just what manner of man he is.

While it is admitted that physical and mental tests are often
stupidly devised and bigotedly inflicted on the testee, yet it seems
likely that we have given here a method which can be employed to the
greatest advantage even in every-day ethics. For the psychological
method, in that it teaches one first to become analytical and
discriminative, replaces the old, unfounded prejudice that men are
unequivocally either good or bad, virtuous or vicious, saints or
sinners, by a desire to know just what can be done with and for them.
And while the methods of psychology will probably always rank men on
a scale from low to high, and will always employ opposite poles in
its judgments, yet in the multitude of such antonyms there is safety.
Scientific judgments are, by being unemotional, devoid both of that
extreme congratulation and sharp censure which attach to purely
moral estimates, while the wide range of observation upon which they
are made provides for the greatest number of human contacts and
of educative measures possible. To extol a man is often not much
different in effect than to blame him, and both praise and blame can
equally hinder his power to acquire an ethical technique. Men differ
too variously to be fitted to any one Procrustean bed; the human mind
has infinitely more than two dimensions. Moreover, the moralist’s
use of bi-polar judgments tends inevitably to separate men, rather
than to unite them, or to teach them to cooperate with one another.
And when we consider that from now on, at least, the predicaments of
this planet will be common liabilities of the whole human race, the
pragmatic urgency to employ the methods of psychology in attaining
social harmony are undisguisedly patent.

The benefits derived from employing the psychological method in
ethics are, however, by no means exclusively social. The use of this
method reacts directly upon the user in several significant ways.
In the first place, the man who employs even as few as twenty-five
of the newer categories in making a trait analysis of his fellows,
soon becomes aware of the fact that his former analysis of himself
is in need of revision. Exaggerated self-preference is thus broken
down, and replaced, not by its opposite,—self-abasement,—but by an
estimate which arises from comparisons and contrasts resulting from
the use of an objective standard. Again, the user of this method
learns that human behavior is not the product of some mysterious
mental element called “character,” but that character itself is the
product of traits, and, furthermore, that every trait has had a
developmental history, which is at every point a record of the effect
of environmental stimulus upon original nature. His own character
thereafter becomes subject to scientific scrutiny, and he realizes,
for example, that his previous emotional repugnances were not always
signs of incorruptibility, but very frequently, indeed, signs of the
extent to which his own desires had been prevented from reaching
their maturity. And, only to mention one more of the many benefits
of such new scientific insight, the use of this method reveals that
times out of number purely moral judgments are employed to quench,
rather than to quicken thought, and are uttered not so much to
indicate that discriminative sympathies are being acquired, as to
show that they have long since ceased to germinate. Henceforth the
employment of the psychological method goes hand in hand with the
urgency to prevent as many young minds as possible from suffering on
account of a retarded development.

Such a change of emphasis from traditional morals to scientific
methods implies unequivocally that the problems of ethics are
henceforth to be solved by experts. Already the recognition of the
need of such a change is evident in the reliance that is being placed
upon psychiatrists and other medical men to assist in the cure of
those who are maladjusted to their environment. Health-clinics
likewise are being both promoted and attended by those who realize
that the virtues go as deep as the viscera, and that often such
things as ignorance of the shape of one’s stomach have been the
source of many a lapse from normality. This reliance upon trained
experts is, moreover, a sign of still further changes in our
occidental philosophy of life. It means that we are acquiring the
conviction that constructive criticism is better than ritual, and
analysis more efficacious than prayer. For we have begun to see
that progress must come by honest, painstaking efforts in the here
and now, rather than by presuming upon the perfection of a universe
which we have only begun to understand. It is indeed the well-born
sentiment of many thousands of people today that science wisely
employed for the benefit and use of men is the only true word of God.

Herewith, also, the question of what sort of ideals an applied
mechanistic psychology of conduct provides may have an answer. On
this point we need not be dumb, nor can we make a “sentimental
compromise.” When the mechanist asserts that we _are_ what we
_do_, he does not thereby denounce ideals; on the contrary, he
thus only affirms his purpose to take the whole question of ideals
seriously, more seriously, in fact, than it was ever taken before.
Herein also he declares for the Ethics of Hercules rather than the
“Ethics of Cinderella.” For while he must admit that there is,
accordingly, no class of people who can be truthfully said to be
“the pure in heart,”—owing to the fatigue of attention incident to
all other-worldly contemplation,—yet he also asserts that the man
who knows his capacities and powers as the result of an objective
analysis, is by that means equipped to advance to more inclusive
levels of conduct than he who merely cultivates an inner life of
private mystery. The mechanist would therefore let new standards
grow out of the development of natural human capacities, out of the
struggle to educate men so that their desires and abilities mature
simultaneously, and out of the freedom which can thus be achieved by
those able to achieve it.

“Great love comes from great knowledge,” said Leonardo da Vinci, and
the advance of science today in all its branches corroborates this
assertion. Although at the present hour it does not seem clear just
what the universe is doing, yet they who recognize even in seemingly
disastrous tumults the struggles of man to enlarge his power to
think, will see that even if nature’s way appears to be circuitous
and even at times crude, it is nevertheless nature’s inevitable way.
Much lamentation is heard today over the changes which evolution has
brought to this planet, and the outcry is even raised that science
has taken away our souls. Is it necessary to reply that a faith
in stagnation is clearly out of joint with the creative functions
of time, or that the loss of an ancient belief may be the sign of
a truly ethical advance? Indeed, we can well be assured that the
type of soul which is composed of self-stifled desires, of restless
sentiments due to an ignoble retreat from reality, of the fear of
ultimate annihilation, not only _will_ die, but it also _ought_ to
die. There is another and a better kind of soul,—the one created out
of sagacity, skill, and kindness, which generates power, wisdom, and
peace,—and this type of soul, as long as the sun remains hot, and the
earth’s crust keeps flowering into men, will have its immortality
guaranteed. This is the mechanist’s religion,—a consequence of,
rather than an apology for, his ethics. For religion, though it be
a word made base by those who claim to have an endless copyright
on truth, and a retroactive monopoly on the deeper human emotions,
means to a mechanist something more closely allied to its original
signification. It means a reliance on that much of nature, and a
support from that much of humanity, as contributes to the development
of a man’s talents, to the freedom of his actions, and to his peace
of mind. The new labors of Hercules will consist in making this true
for the whole human race.




INDEX


  Abstract terms, 24

  Action-pattern, 20

  Adler, A., 171

  Adrian, E. D., 27

  Andreas Hofer, 132

  All-or-none principle, 27-30, 109

  Aristotle, 8, 15


  Babbitt, Irving, 189

  Bayliss, W. M. 27, n; 32-n.

  Buddhism, 139

  Butler, Joseph, 157-8


  Charcot, J. M., 33

  Circular reflex, 89, 185

  Clarke, Samuel, 158-9

  Composition, fallacy of, 98

  Conditioned reflex, 26, 54, 89

  Couterat, L., 90

  Cox, C. G., 8

  Crile, G. W., 20


  Davis, W. M., 8

  Democritus, 12

  Descartes, 36, 190

  Dewey, I., 8, 16, 17, 21, 170-171

  Diogenes, 121

  Dynamogenesis, law of, 33


  Emerson, 13, 72

  Empedocles, 13, 59

  Everett, W. G., 175


  Golden Rule, 194


  Harvey, William, 15

  Helvetius, 164

  Hobbes, 8, 157

  Holt, E. B., 8, 16, 20, 31, 127, 170

  Homer, 19

  Hypostatization, fallacy of, 163


  Initial predication, fallacy of, 6


  James, W., 13, 51, 75

  Jesus, 29, 72, 136


  Language, functions of, 17-18

  Law, “moral,” 68, 162

  Legal rights, 84-94

  Leonardo da Vinci, 8, 201

  Levy-Brühl, L., 8, 162, 189

  Locke, J., 164-5

  Lucas, Keith, 27


  Mahommedanism, 139

  Meaning, 21-24

  Meyer, Max, 104

  Mill, J. S., 8, 165

  Milton, 59

  Morality not the same as ethics, 73

  “Moral” rights, 94-100

  “Motor set,” 20

  Murray, James, 156


  Outgoing reaction, 56


  Paulsen, F., 137

  Perry, R. B., 6, n; 175

  Plato, 121, 130

  Prince, Morton, 140

  Protagoras, 187


  Reciprocal innervation, law of, 32-35, 59

  Regulus, 132

  Reid, T., 162-3

  Richet, C., 33


  “Secret of Life,” 5

  Sellars, R. W., 8, 58, 190

  Shaftesbury, 158

  Socrates, 7-8, 72, 132

  “Specific response,” 20

  Spencer, H., 8

  Spinoza, 8, 99

  Starling, E. H., 28, n; 32, n.

  Stoics, 193

  “Stream of thought,” 14


  Thigmotaxis, 131

  Titchener, E. B., 20


  Vitalist, 5-7

  Vague, meaning of, 26


  Withdrawing reaction, 66


  Zoroaster, 13, 58-9




_A PARTIAL LIST OF BORZOI TEXTS_


EARLY CIVILIZATION: AN INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY

  _By Alexander A. Goldenweiser, Lecturer on Anthropology and
  Sociology at the New School for Social Research, New York_

Large 8vo, Cloth, XXIV 424 pages

While offering an elementary text for the beginner in anthropology,
this volume is mainly designed as a source book of information and
suggestion for students of sociology who may wish to amplify their
familiarity with modern social phenomena by an inquiry into the
nature of early civilization and the workings of the primitive mind.


SECRET HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT

_By Wilfrid Scawen Blunt_

Large 8vo, Cloth, 450 pages

This book makes clear the varying motives—imperialistic, economic,
and personal—which brought about the English occupation of Egypt.
Based on personal records and contemporary documents, its statements
and conclusions have a profound interest and importance for students
of history in general and of English history in particular.


THE GERMAN CONSTITUTION

  _By René Brunet, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University
  of Caen (translated from the French by Joseph Gollomb, with an
  Introduction by Charles A. Beard)_

8vo, Cloth, XIV 339 pages

This is a critical discussion of the new German Constitution, the
actual text of which is included, in English, as an appendix.
It gives a lucid and unbiased account of the German Revolution,
describes the conflict of forces which ended in the establishment of
the Republic, and concludes with a systematic analysis of the new
plan of government.


THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

  _By James Mickel Williams, Professor of Economics and Sociology in
  Hobart College_

Large 8vo, Cloth, XVI 494 pages

A comparative study of the psychological aspects of the social
sciences. It treats of the relation of social psychology to political
science, jurisprudence, economics, history and sociology, analyzing
the psychological assumptions underlying the behavior of men living
in social relations.


PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

  _By James Mickel Williams, Professor of Economics and Sociology in
  Hobart College_

Large 8vo Cloth, XII 459 pages

This book represents the first attempt that has been made to explain
society concretely in psychological terms. It describes the essential
processes that extend thruout the social organization, analyzing the
conflict of the different types of behavior in all human relations.


THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

  _By Franz Carl Müller-Lyer (translated from the German by E. C. and
  H. W. Lake, with Introductions by L. T. Hobhouse and E. J. Urwick)_

8vo, Cloth, 362 pages

This volume is mainly designed as a text for beginners in social
studies. It surveys broadly the various phases of man’s origin and
progress, co-ordinating the general facts of social evolution from
the earliest times and indicating the probable trend of future
developments.


HUMAN NATURE IN POLITICS

  _By Graham Wallas, Professor of Political Science in London
  University_

8vo, Cloth, 320 pages

This is a slightly revised edition, with a new Preface, of Professor
Wallas’ famous work first published in England, in 1908, and for some
time out of print. It offers a clear and forceful analysis of the
psychological processes which underlie political thought and action,
laying special emphasis upon the application of social psychology to
politics.


HOW ENGLAND IS GOVERNED

  _By Rt. Hon. C. F. G. Masterman_

8vo, Cloth, XVI 293 pages

An introductory study of the working of the British Constitution,
written from the standpoint of one who has had actual experience
of the working of the political machinery of England. Students of
politics and government will find in this volume a most interesting
and valuable source of information.


FACING OLD AGE

  _By Abraham Epstein, Formerly Director of the Pennsylvania
  Commission to Investigate Old Age Pensions_

8vo, Cloth, XVI 352 pages

This book offers a scientific examination of the social and economic
problems presented by the aged. Frankly a plea for social action, it
presents in a most thoro and lucid manner the latest available data
bearing upon this interesting and important question.

12mo, Cloth, 280 pages


OUR WAR WITH GERMANY

  _By John Spencer Bassett, Professor of American History in Smith
  College_

Large 8vo, Cloth, 398 pages

This is a compact but complete account of the part played by the
United States in the World War. It is in no sense a mere record of
military events, but an analytical account of the political, economic
and military events that marked the period of the war.


CONSUMERS’ COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES

  _By Charles Gide, Professor of Economics at the University of Paris
  (translation from the French, edited by Cedric Long)_

8vo, Cloth, 300 pages

This translation of Professor Gide’s famous work is intended to meet
the needs of American students of Distributive Co-operation. The
first three chapters are devoted to an elucidation of the meaning and
history of the co-operative movement, while the bulk of the volume
deals with the practical problems of organization, administration and
development of consumers’ societies themselves.


THE ETHICS OF HERCULES

  _By Robert Chenault Givler_

12mo, Cloth 210 pages

A strictly behavioristic treatment of ethical values. Not only is
human conduct the result of external and internal stimuli upon the
human body, but even our notions of right and wrong are derived from
the reactions of our nerves and muscles to the various stimuli which
excite them.


THE ETHICS OF JOURNALISM

  _By Nelson Antrim Crawford_

8vo, Cloth 270 pages

A clear-cut, objective exposition and analysis of contemporary
journalistic practice with reference to advertising, news, and
editorial, carefully documented. Here is a pioneer book on a subject
which is attracting keen attention especially among practicing and
prospective journalists.


THE BASIS OF SOCIAL THEORY

  _By Adam G. A. Balz, with the collaboration of William S. A. Pott_

12mo, Cloth 253 pages

The writers of this book take the position that a science of Human
Nature is requisite for the progress of all the social sciences, that
Social Psychology is failing to accomplish its fundamental purpose of
clarifying the uncertainties and ambiguities concerning the nature of
social facts and causes.


THE TREND OF ECONOMICS

  _By Various Writers (edited by Rexford G. Tugwell)_

8vo, Cloth 550 pages

A series of monographs contributed by thirteen outstanding American
economists of the younger generation designed to set forth the
present tendencies of economic thought and inquiry in the light of
their historical development.




  Transcriber’s Notes

  pg 30 Changed: if the word have a meaning
             to: if the word has a meaning

  pg 52 Changed: Class B is always life-enchancing
             to: Class B is always life-enhancing

  pg 149 Changed: adopted them in a semi-parodoxical
              to: adopted them in a semi-paradoxical