objective example of vigorous ethical reasoning by reading that simple but great letter of Pope Gregory to Abbot Miletus in 601, in which he declared his reasons for his conclusion to spare the temples which had been erected to the pagan gods. For the stately apostolic salutation, "To his most beloved son, the Abbot Miletus; Gregory, the servant of the servants of God," we may substitute a more direct modern form of address and then proceed with directly quoting the opening words of Gregory's letter.

MY DEAR BROTHER MILETUS: We have been much concerned, since the departure of our congregation that is with you, because we have received no account of the success of your journey. When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, viz., that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed.

But Gregory continued his letter and pointed out that the idols within those temples should be destroyed, and he directed that "altars be erected and relics placed"; he also directed that as a sign of purification water should be sprinkled over these objects. Gregory then argued that if those temples are well built it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of pagan gods to "the service of the true God; that the nations seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed." The custom of slaughtering animals (oxen) for the honor of the pagan gods and other wastes of pagan festivity and dedication Gregory sought to rationalize by substituting a more rational and less harmful and less destructive set of mores. Thus Gregory directed that a

we can successfully modernize and apply their actual intellectual reasoning to modern conditions and problems. It has often occurred to me that had Augustine been possessed of the modern equipment of social science and social philosophy he might have chosen to argue for the location of his Civitas Dei as a successor to our mundane cities, to an earthly reconstructed city, by the perfection of future generations of mortal men, without transferring all his aspirations to a heavenly city far off. For the reading of Augustine's De civitate Dei, let me recommend the translation into English by Marcus Dods, found in Vol. II of the Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers, edited by Philip Schaff. First series, New York, 1907.

sort of camp meeting should be held about a rededicated pagan temple when made ready for Christian worship. "They may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned from" use as pagan temples. They were directed to "kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the giver of all things for their sustenance." Gregory correctly accepted the maxim that he who would "ascend to the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps." The flying machine was unknown to Gregory.'

From the letter of Gregory to Miletus in 601 to the Encyclical upon Labor, by Leo XIII in 1891 and since, similar lines of concrete and opportunist ethical reasoning may be found in abundance, penned by Catholic and Protestant churchmen alike. The Protestant churches of the Calvinistic variety throughout its various branches, the Lutheran, Anglican, and Wesleyan, and various types of other independent churches, have borne much fruit in the furnishing of good counsel adjusted to the hard actually existing factors and conditions of life. In fact these churches co-operate with one another and with the Catholic in some instances so far in the promotion of ethical ends and aims of everyday life that these forms of co-operation give some promise of a reunited Christendom; but these promising tokens, it must be confessed, stand by the side of tokens which indicate that that day of union is still afar off. Said a Catholic to a Protestant, "Where was your church before the reformation?" Said the Protestant in reply to the Catholic, "Where yours was." By an adequate and sufficient study and acquaintance with their respective and mutual shortcomings as well as by a sympathetic appreciation of the merits of the social service of the several branches of the Christian church their ultimate reunion may be accomplished. Into this union of fellowship and co-operation the enlightened spirit of altruism and social service of the new Judaism of the contemporary

For this complete letter from Pope Gregory to Abbot Miletus, 601 A.D., see the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England. Edited by J. A. Giles. Second edition, London, 1849: Henry C. Bohn, pp. 55 and 56. See also Glynn, The Great Encyclical.

*For citation of parts of Encyclical upon Labor, see Robinson and Beard, Readings, II, 500, or Hayes, Political and Social History of Europe, II, 249-51.

world also commends itself. But in our conception of humanity and its co-operation toward promoting the advancement and ultimate union of all mankind we must provide for more than Christian Protestant and Catholic and advanced Judaism. In the present stage of the world's development we may at least agree in pronouncing as good literature Lessing's fable in his Nathan the Wise of three rings and the loss of the true original, and that confession of Peter recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, 10:34-35, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him." These citations we may at least agree in recognizing as verdicts of great literature. It is not widely questioned in our time by the thoughtful that the modern forms of organized Christianity, notwithstanding the bickerings and dissentions which too often issue, are nevertheless a powerful agency for good which gains expression in individual and social, i.e., public or popular, welfare.

In fact these agencies with their continuous adjustment and readjustment of individual and social conditions constitute a constituent part of the life of every strong nation, large or small, under the sun. This larger social control, which now governs national life in its ramifying interrelations, imposes on the citizenship of every people its norms of conduct and the direction of individual and collective effort. Hence come the limitations and power of the state; hence arises the supplemental control which is imposed on the citizenship of a state or people in the formal or tacit enactment of positive law.

a) Sociocracy and Democracy; Merit of a Mixed Constitution: For some years now I have been accustomed to employ the word sociocracy rather than either the word democracy or the word autocracy as a neutral word in distinction from both words, which are nowadays much used and often very indiscriminatingly used, and much in opposition as if the words were mutually exclusive, whereas the opposition is after all now largely chauvinistic and usually rests on subjective presuppositions which do not at all rest on reality or correct information respecting the actual practices and policies of the several states respectively under discussion.

After the passions of the present conflict shall have subsided we can again discuss the relative merits of varying state policies more calmly and dispassionately.

If we examine modern forms of sociocracy, whether we denominate them as democracy or autocracy, we shall the more readily discover what there is and how much there is in common between the English and the Continental systems of law. All forms of social control, whether exercised by the church, the family, or the state, combine to make up public opinion or the social mind. The groundwork of a public opinion or social mind, if it is to be depended upon for the guidance and adjustment of the intricate relations of social life, must rest upon some system of reasoned law like the civil law of Rome and of Continental Europe, or the common law of England and the statute law of America and other lands founded on the English law; these systems of reasoned law are themselves expressions of ethical theory in so far as they approach the ideals of ethical theory, and in what country does its reasoned law not claim to aspire to an approach of ethical justice? In the Continental countries of Europe there is so far no distinction between legality and justice, just as there is no distinction between Recht and Gesetz; but does that prove any corresponding difference in justice and legality? Is the claim which is usually and often boastfully made for the distinction not after all essentially chauvinistic? The long-since recognized merit of a mixed constitution now still deserves recognition. Modern economics and politics have as yet given no final answers to the respective claims of democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. Shall their respective claims be finally answered much as Plato and Aristotle answered, and as really nearly all the political philosophers and thoroughgoing thinkers of modern times have answered? The best elements of both extremes must be combined in what the Greeks called a mixed system, and what we may call a constitutional system.

After the great awakening which came to mediaeval Europe during the eleventh century Aristotelian lines of economic inquiry were again reopened and re-entered by the recovery of the study

'For parallels and points of contact between the Roman law and English law, cí. secs. 44 to 46 of my Foundations of Economics.

of the new jurisprudence of the eleventh century and the development of the canonist economics so vigorously developed during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. That the mercantilistic and cameralistic economics are likewise based on a broad historical and ethical basis has been amply shown by the wellknown essays of Gustav Schmoller and Albion W. Small respectively.

The historical school of economics and the newly forming science of sociology have jointly helped the English classical political economy to the present broad and sound basis of economic science. Among contemporary students of economic science some are showing a generous interest in this newly forming science of sociology and some a less generous interest; others are even showing a jealous and possibly a hostile interest in it; while a few possibly are still proudly sticking to their last, claiming that they have enough to do cultivating their own chosen garden. Yes, surely, the social sciences must be differentiated! This is necessary for the purpose of distinctly dividing the labor of students who must needs devote themselves to specific problems in order to become intensive masters of chosen professional work or selected fields of investigation. But shall these students have no provinces of investigation which they may claim in common?

Before a man can be considered a master in the social science of economics, or of politics, above all before he can be considered a Doctor, that is, learned in these sciences, he should know in addition to routine economic theory and economic history at least the elements of political philosophy and the common law, together with the meaning of such terms as constitutional limitations, judicial interpretation, and political corruption. I believe so strongly in the interdependence of economics and politics that I would insist on their joint requirement in qualifying for a Doctor's degree in either by requiring the other to be offered as a minor to whichever is offered as a major. Moreover it is also even at present proving true that the newly, though perhaps only slowly, building science of sociology is again giving to morality and the philosophy of reli

I Cf. secs. 13, 20, 23, and 30 of Modern Economics, and secs. 43 and 51-52 of Foundations of Economics.