The motive thus inspired is the prompting of the general conclusion of practical reason. Every practical judgment is hypothetical: if I put my hand in the fire I shall be burned; I shrink from burning, therefore I shrink from the act which would involve such consequences. If I follow one course I shall add to the sum of evil; if I follow the other I shall add to the sum of good and be a part of the force that makes for the fulfilment of the good possibilities of man. We all want the general good to be secured, but if the boat laden with the hopes of us all comes duly to harbor it will be because each one pulls an oar. Can I be boring holes in the bottom of the boat while others row? No force is adequate to hold each man in his place save each man's perception of his own duty; no law will suffice but the law of freedom, in which each one is a law unto himself. At the same time the lawlessness of one undermines the fidelity of others while each faithful soul is a center of soundness-this is the salt which saves the world. It is the sight of the self-imposed fidelity of the faithful that keeps alive man's faith in man wherever that faith does not die. The more others do not see or seeing do not obey the law of our common life the more cause for the fidelity of the one. Where others prove unfaithful he will fail of the ends which by their co-operation he might have reached, but failing so, though at the stake or on the cross, he will be a savior. Therefore let each so play his part, that if all should play their parts likewise, the good possibilities of the group in which he moves, and of humanity, would be fulfilled. There is no other way to save the world. The generalized rational, or hypothetical, imperative has all the majesty without the incomprehensibility of the categorical imperative.

It has been said that there is no sanction in reason for doing good to another at cost to the doer, and that all altruism depends upon a non-rational supernatural sanction. But is that not an abysmal absurdity? If my action affects the welfare of another as well as my own, then to act in disregard of his welfare is to choose my course in disregard of a part of its consequences, to "reason" while deliberately ignoring a part of the pertinent facts, and to be governed not by reference to the facts of the case but by emotional partiality. It is to claim that good is good only

when realized by myself, and that the only suffering is my suffering, for if the good and the suffering of others are real they cannot be ignored in a rational balancing of the consequences of conduct. This is the major premise of justice: the equal reality of good and of harm, in one person or in another, not the equal extent but the equal reality as far as it extends-justice is built by reason upon this premise. And he is not just nor reasonable who affirms the equal reality of good and harm between his two neighbors, but not between himself and one of them. If, when judging between my two neighbors, A and B, I must perceive that good and harm are equally real in the experience of both, then the fact of that equality does not evaporate and become non-existent when A is judging between himself and B. He alone is just who can enforce justice between himself and his neighbor.

The real reason why some thinkers hold that there is no rational sanction for righteousness is that they regard it as axiomatic that sacrifice is never reasonable. But in fact sacrifice is never duty unless it is reasonable, that is, unless a sufficiently far-seeing and impartial balancing of values would show that from the sacrifice a net gain in experience-values can be anticipated. To say that sacrifice is not reasonable from the point of view of the actor is the same as saying that the actor is expected always to take a partial, a one-sided, an unreasonable view, swayed by his own private interest and denying the equal reality of the interests of others. Impulsive instinctive and unreasoned goodness, precious as it is, will not suffice to save the world.

The conflict between the private interest of the good man and the demands of righteousness upon him is mitigated or resolved by two considerations: First, in proportion as society becomes wise enough to identify its benefactors and its malefactors, it makes the way of transgressors hard, and rewards the well-doer with approval, esteem, promotion, and advantage. It is true that society does not yet dispense its penalites and its favors with wisdom and justice, but it has made progress in that direction and will make more. Second, in making sacrifice the good man does only what he knows any man in his place is reasonably bound to do, and should he refuse he would violate his own reason, and

murder his own personality; seeking his life he would lose it. He would lose his self-respect, would cease to be the man that he could countenance, would sacrifice his own peace and worth, and his zest in the pursuit of life's aim, and that loyalty which is the heart of the life of a social being. Every true man knows that it is war time, and for the true man in war time sacrifice is a condition of the highest happiness. He is happier playing his part in the strife of good and evil, just as the loyal Dodson felt that it was but natural for him to ride behind to toils and perils when his Montmorency went to war, and he was far happier so than he would have been skulking at home.

No follower of the rational social imperative can ever think that it imposes a merely negative responsibility requiring him to do no harm. The source of life's reasonable motives is not merely that there is harm to be prevented but also in the fact that there is always potential good to be achieved, and that this potential good must largely be a co-operative social achievement, in which each man's work and the suggestions emanating from his personality play a part. The logic of the generalized hypothetical imperative requires him so to act as to fit into the general method of the social realization of good. In entering upon any situation in life, in joining a moonlight stroll or a parlor festival, in accepting a place on an athletic team, or membership in a home, or taking employment with a firm, or engaging a workman, or opening an office in a city, it is reasonable to ask both what can I get out of this situation and what can I put into it. Not to ask the latter as well as the former question is to be base and parasitic. Every social situation is a co-operative undertaking in which each one depends upon the rest and must be depended on, which each one can make worse and each one can make better. This realization makes men real. Moved by it one cannot make goods "just to sell," one will not speak or write moved only by the thought of the reaction of his public upon himself with praise or blame, reward or penalty, but he will speak and write and work for truth and righteousness.

Whatever may be true of women, with men it is the generalized social imperative rather than particular sympathy that evokes

1

the highest devotion, and lives of consistent and dependable usefulness. Saints, missionaries, and reformers are not likely to be persons whose benevolent life-purpose depends wholly upon sympathy with particular instances that chance to come within their observation, but they are likely rather to be persons who can feel enthusiasm for a general social campaign. So also is the ordinary good and fit citizen of an advanced and advancing society. Personal, as distinguished from social, sympathy, will not do; it is too short-sighted, it can feel a social pin prick, but it cannot see a thirteen-inch gun aimed across the social battlefield. Milk men who would die rather than strangle one pink baby have murdered innocents like Herod. Corporators who would passionately defend the property rights of an acquaintance have appropriated millions for which they have made no return. In the mind of the good man the generalization of the requirements of humanity must go beyond the particular instance. Suppose certain corporations are bound to use money enough to kill a bill which is pending before a legislature, and that the bill ought to be killed. Shall the legislator say: "I will take the thousand dollars offered for my negative vote; it will make no difference except that the money will be in my pocket instead of some other"? Or shall he say: "Bribery and the perversion of representative government can be stopped only when legislators refuse bribes; there is vastly more at stake than this strike bill, all strike bills, fit city charters, administration of health laws that could save thousands of lives annually, all laws, the general promotion of welfare realizable by pure legislation and administration, all are at stake more than men have died for on many a battlefield is at stake. Progress waits for soundness; it is for me to help perpetuate the existing rottenness by being a part of it or to be one center of soundness and give back to the man who offers me the bribe his faith in men. It may do no good in the present legislation, but my sacrifice will be part of the cost of the coming better day." This is the meaning of the saying of Christ, "If any man will come after me let him take up his cross and follow me"-let him pay his part of the cost as I pay mine on my cross.

Enough of that cost has already been paid so that we have

begun to live in "a pleasure economy" We have still a "submerged tenth," and woman's lot is as yet too hard or too vacant, and in every broad social class there are inestimable possibilities of good still unfulfilled. Yet where reasonable bodily health exists a clear margin of good experience over evil is, for the great majority of us, attainable. But, in our pursuit of good, will our energies be guided by a wise conception of that harmony of diverse experiences in which The Good consists? Instinct does not equip us with the needed guidance, instinct affords adequate direction for the simple life of a lower animal, but not for the complex task of human life. The inborn tendencies of every generation require to be reinforced by the experience and reflection of those who have gone before. Each generation sets out with the illusion that brief and superficial pleasures are the substance of happiness, like children that, given one wish by the fairy godmother, desire barrels of candy. Inexperience does not know that it is in the zestful exercise of our powers and the deep tide of lasting social and personal satisfactions and the harmony of life which omits no good experience but includes each in due subordination to life's ideal completeness that our true fulfilment consists. Painfully men struggle for vanities, and pitifully they sell their birthright for a mess of savory steaming pottage, soon devoured; ruefully they gaze upon the ashes that fill their hands, ashes into which the apples of Sodom crumbled at their touch. From the time when Solomon, having taken every "pleasure" that his royal power could seize, cried in the end, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit," down to Goethe and his Faust the same old lesson has been learned by succeeding generations of men.

Why is Faust regarded as the supreme literary expression of the wonderful century of literature in which it was produced? Because it so masterfully treats the supreme question, "What in life is good?" and gives an answer which commends itself to that mature judgment of the discerning which is the final test of literary values. And this is the answer given: Faust tries the pleasures of knowledge, license, wealth, power, glory, beauty, and mastery over Nature, but finds no hour in which to say: "Tarry for thou