The Ethical Librare
SOCIAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES
ADDRESSES TO ETHICAL SOCIETIES
BY
LESLIE STEPHEN
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED
NEW-YORK
MACMILLAN & CO.
1896
CONTENTS. <...> The following chapters are chiefly a republication of
addresses delivered to the Ethical Societies of London. <...> Some
have previously appeared in the International Journal of Ethics,
the National Review, and the Contemporary Review. <...> L. S.
2
THE AIMS OF ETHICAL SOCIETIES. <...> I am about to say a few words upon the aims of this
society: and I should be sorry either to exaggerate or to
depreciate our legitimate pretensions. <...> It would be altogether
impossible to speak too strongly of the importance of the great
questions in which our membership, of the society shows us to
be interested. <...> It would, I fear, be easy enough to make an overestimate of the part which we can expect to play in their
solution. <...> I hold indeed, or I should not be here, that we may be
of some service at any rate to each other. <...> I think that anything
which stimulates an active interest in the vital problems of the
day deserves the support of all thinking men; and I propose to
consider briefly some of the principles by which we should be
guided in doing whatever we can to promote such an interest. <...> We are told often enough that we are living in a period
of important intellectual and social revolutions. <...> In one way we are perhaps inclined even to state the
fact a little too strongly. <...> We suffer at times from the common
illusion that the problems of to-day are entirely new: we fancy
that nobody ever thought of them before, and that when we
have solved them, nobody will ever need to look for another
solution. <...> The conscience of mankind, he thinks, has
become drugged and lethargic; our minds are fixed upon
sensual pleasures, and our conduct regulated by a blind struggle
for the maximum of luxurious enjoyment. <...> Nothing would be easier than to
make out a catena of testimonies from great men <...>
Social_rights_and_duties._Vol._1.pdf
The Ethical Librare
SOCIAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES
ADDRESSES TO ETHICAL SOCIETIES
BY
LESLIE STEPHEN
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED
NEW-YORK
MACMILLAN & CO.
1896
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CONTENTS.
NOTE. ....................................................................................... 2
THE AIMS OF ETHICAL SOCIETIES. .................................. 3
SCIENCE AND POLITICS. ................................................... 28
THE SPHERE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY......................... 55
THE MORALITY OF COMPETITION. ................................ 79
SOCIAL EQUALITY. .......................................................... 102
ETHICS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. ........ 128
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NOTE.
The following chapters are chiefly a republication of
addresses delivered to the Ethical Societies of London. Some
have previously appeared in the International Journal of Ethics,
the National Review, and the Contemporary Review. The author
has
to thank the proprietors of these periodicals
consent to the republication.
L. S.
for
their
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THE AIMS OF ETHICAL SOCIETIES.
I am about to say a few words upon the aims of this
society: and I should be sorry either
to exaggerate or to
depreciate our legitimate pretensions. It would be altogether
impossible to speak too strongly of the importance of the great
questions in which our membership, of the society shows us to
be interested. It would, I fear, be easy enough to make an overestimate
of the part which we can expect to play in their
solution. I hold indeed, or I should not be here, that we may be
of some service at any rate to each other. I think that anything
which stimulates an active interest in the vital problems of the
day deserves the support of all thinking men; and I propose to
consider briefly some of the principles by which we should be
guided in doing whatever we can to promote such an interest.
We are told often enough that we are living in a period
of important intellectual and social revolutions.
In one way we are perhaps inclined even to state the
fact a little too strongly. We suffer at times from the common
illusion that the problems of to-day are entirely new: we fancy
that nobody ever thought of them before, and that when we
have solved them, nobody will ever need to look for another
solution. To ardent reformers in all ages it seems as if the
millennium must begin with their triumph, and that their
triumph will be established by a single victory. And while some
of us are thus sanguine, there are many who see in the struggles
of to-day the approach of a deluge which is to sweep away all
that once ennobled life. The believer in the old creeds, who
fears that faith is decaying, and the supernatural life fading
from the world, denounces the modern spirit as materialising
and degrading. The conscience of mankind, he thinks, has
become drugged and lethargic; our minds are fixed upon
sensual pleasures, and our conduct regulated by a blind struggle
for the maximum of luxurious enjoyment. The period in his
eyes is a period of growing corruption; modern society suffers
under a complication of mortal diseases, so widely spread and
deeply seated that at present there is no hope of regeneration.
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Social rights and duties
The aims of ethical societies
The best hope is that its decay may provide the soil in which
seed may be sown of a far-distant growth of happier augury.
Such dismal forebodings are no novelty. Every age produces its
prophecies of coming woes. Nothing would be easier than to
make out a catena of testimonies from great men at every stage
of the world's history, declaring each in turn that the cup of
iniquity was now at last overflowing, and that corruption had
reached so unprecedented a step that some great catastrophe
must be approaching. A man of unusually lofty morality is, for
that reason, more keenly sensitive to the lowness of the average
standard, and too easily accepts the belief that the evils before
his eyes must be in fact greater, and not, as may perhaps be the
case, only more vividly perceived, than those of the bygone
ages. A call to repentance easily takes the form of an assertion
that the devil is getting the upper hand; and we may hope that
the pessimist view is only a form of the discontent which is a
necessary condition of improvement. Anyhow, the diametrical
conflict of prophecies suggests
one remark which often
impresses me. We are bound to call each other by terribly hard
names. A gentleman assures me in print that I am playing the
devil's game; depriving my victims, if I have any, of all the
beliefs that can make life noble or happy, and doing my best to
destroy the very first principles of morality. Yet I meet my
adversary in the flesh, and find that he treats me not only with
courtesy, but with no inconsiderable amount of sympathy. He
admits — by his actions and his argument — that I — the
miserable sophist and seducer — have not only some good
impulses, but have really something to say which deserves a
careful and respectful answer. An infidel, a century or two ago,
was
supposed to have forfeited all claim to the ordinary
decencies of life. Now I can say, and can say with real
satisfaction, that I do not find any difference of creed, however
vast in words, to be an obstacle to decent and even friendly
treatment. I am at times tempted to ask whether my opponent
can be quite logical in being so courteous; whether, if he is as
sure as he says that I am in the devil's service, I ought not, as a
matter of duty, to be encountered with the old dogmatism and
arrogance. I shall, however, leave my friends of a different way
of thinking to settle that point for themselves. I cannot doubt
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