It ought not to be necessary at this time of day to offer a justification for Bradlaugh's doctrine on the ethical side, his position being simply that of modern science.
Of course it will at times be fallaciously applied, as regarded from the point of view of developed sympathy; but it can never be misapplied as grossly as the religious standard has been, and it remains the final standard of ethical appeal.
The small societies which muster under the banner of "Ethical Culture," little as they are given to speaking out on matters of creed, receive little support.
The University College was thus committed to a course of ethical rivalry with the House of Commons, outdoing that body, however, in declining to assign any reason for its action.
Strange what somersaults a hobby ridden too hard may induce a man to make in his ethical attitude!
He is lenient to the sinner because of his sense of justice and mercy; yet at the same time his ethical ideal is infinitely higher than Homer's.
As Christians we gratefully acknowledge our ethical and spiritual indebtedness to the people of Israel.
We Christians have inherited the ethical and religious insights of Israel.
Although it is at bottom both of these, it appears in its external form as a social-ethical question, and is treated by us as such.
It appears to this writer that groups that excelled in effective resistance were voluntary organizations independent of state control that were conveyers of religious or ethical norms.
In one letter he wrote that the near complete hostility of the American people was deeply ethical in nature and could be modified only by two processes: 1.
His incursion into literature is a border foray, and he is off at once with his plunder to his ethical highlands.
She had strong ethical prejudices, and a wealth of recollected examples by which she could justify them.
This is very well in a general way, but where an economic problem becomes an ethical problem a conclusion may not be an altogether bad thing.
The Movement in Ethics=] If we now turn aside from religion as a whole, and consider only its ethical side, it is to find an immense advance within the nineteenth century.
It will discuss great ethical questions; it will carry conscientiousness and independence into political action; it will dissipate the weak heresy that Christians are not to take part in national affairs.
The former insistence upon creed as the essential factor in religion has greatly weakened in favor of its ethical element, and the supremacy of conduct over creed is openly taught.
The progress in ethical sentiment is doubtless largely due to the same cause, that of educational development.
For the first few years of its existence Anabaptism remained true to its original theologico-ethical principles.
It was Anabaptism of the original type and conducted on the old theologico-ethical lines.
His ethical code, on the other hand, was vague, and he pandered strangely in some directions to the weaknesses of the flesh, and in others to popular prejudices.
Hence, even if the attempt had been or were in the future made to instil ethical notions into the minds of the Indian youth independently of all religious teaching, it could only result in failure.
But the Arya-Samaj has not been content to assert the ethical perfection of the Vedas.
Illustration] IX Origin of Moral Ideas and Sentiments Now, here at last, in encountering the ethical process at work, have we detected a breach of continuity?
But suppose we say that the ultimate goal of the ethical process is the perfecting of human character?
There is an ethical sentiment in the clan; its members have duties toward it; it punishes sundry acts even with death, and rewards or extols sundry other acts.
Take away the ethical significance from our conceptions of the Unseen World and the quasi-human God, and no element of significance remains.
The cardinal fact is that the crude childlike mind was groping to put itself into relation with an ethical world not visible to the senses.
Illustration] VI Religions Third Postulate: the Ethical Significance of the Unseen World Our account of the rise and progress of the general belief in an Unseen World is, however, not yet complete.
Once thus externalized, objectivized, theethical standard demanded homage from the individual.
Illustration] XII The Omnipresent Ethical Trend With the evolution of true maternity Nature was ready to proceed to her highest grades of work.
We have here been concerned purely with the ethical process itself, which we have found to be--as Huxley truly says in his footnote--part and parcel of the general process of evolution.
As with the boys’ schools, so these designed for girls were put on foot, partly at least, from an ethical standpoint.
It is an interesting question, nevertheless, what are the moral standards of our apologist for the intellectual life, and what degree of ethical perfection would satisfy him in a world of various spheres all regenerated by culture.
Upon this ethical decision will depend the question whether the immense stock of absinthe now on the French market is wealth or not.
Later on the scientific and ethical aspects of Socialism will, I hope, lead to the conclusion that Socialism will so raise our ethical standards and habits of mind that sexual irregularities will tend to diminish.
Socialism has been presented from the economic standpoint, from the scientific, from the ethicaland from the idealistic.
It is impossible to treat of the economic cause of prostitution without discussing its ethical consequences, because the consequences react upon the cause.
It is ethical because "the competitive system must ultimately break upon the solidarity of mankind," because the survival of the fit is not the whole result of evolution.
Planning it out beforehand, Blount had meant to give the ethical reasons which had constrained him to put a conclusive end to the attorney-generalship scheme.
Considerable objection was made by members and lecturers of the Ethical Societies to my trying to organize an Independent Society in Chicago.
There is a radical difference between Ethical Culture and Rationalism, which may be brought out by the help of an illustration: A certain king had many slaves.
What is the defense ofEthical Culture against this charge?
It should be as impossible to reconcile Ethical Culture with the churches, as it is to reconcile theology with science, and yet, that is precisely what the Ethical lecturers think they Have accomplished.
Orthodox leaders were invited to preach from the platform of the Ethical Societies, and it became the ambition of an Ethical lecturer to deliver only such lectures as no church-goer would object to hear.
I invited the leaders of this movement to address my society, and to explain to us in detail the philosophy of Ethical Culture.
Thirty years ago there were four Ethical Societies in America; there are now these same four and no more, and three of them are without any lecturers.
In a lecture delivered before the Chicago Ethical Society, I try to prove the spiritual resurrection of Jesus, and His incomparable greatness.
The Critical Period In 1888 I became acquainted with the work of the Ethical Movement, which was then establishing a branch in Philadelphia.
As to the virtues which consist not in wisdom, but in ethical habits and austerities, they belong to the common part.
But they need not be so anxious to show that Savonarola was no ascetic, that he merely picked out the black specks of wickedness with the priggish enlightenment of a member of an Ethical Society.
Nisbet Bain, is calculated to draw particular attention to this ethical and ascetic side of Tolstoy's work.
This is the sum maximum of all ethical science and is complete.
Very true, but why not say that the men in control of the two great nations involved were moved to act as they did because of their strong ethical principles?
In its character it is to be the representation of the highest standard of ethical deportment and the best example of religious life.
The moral standard has been elevated and the conceptions of the race in relation to ethical life has been greatly improved and beautifully exemplified in the lives of thousands.
For it must be conceded that all friendly relations are based upon ethical treatment.
In any discussion of anethical character mere statistics may not be relied upon.
That new ethical and spiritual susceptibility, into which agony and loss had become slowly transformed, dominated and absorbed all else.
The Englishman took them into his heart, that ethical fibre in him, which was at last roused and dominant, vibrating, responding.
But the ethical inadequacy of Berkeley became very soon plain to me.
A bulky volume would scarcely sum up the ethical and political reflections scattered up and down his plays; a few pages would comprise all that could be put down as exclusively theological.
This complete subordination of the theological element to the ethical is the more conspicuous when we compare his dramas with the Homeric Epics, and with the tragedies of Æschylus and Sophocles.
There are two quite different kinds of influence to which the formation of an ethical doctrine may be due.
The incoherence of popular opinions about morality is a potent stimulus to reflexion, and may of itself give rise to systematic ethical enquiry.
Now I am willing to admit that Green showed a correct instinct in examining the nature of man before entering upon his properly ethical enquiry.
In other words, the fundamental ethical question would be entirely excluded from the scope of the science of ethics.
After this long enquiry into the nature and scope of natural selection, we should be better prepared to understand the degree and kind of ethical significance which can be rightly assigned to the theory of evolution.
If I were asked what is meant by an ethical unity, I should answer, in the first place, that it implies purpose.
Influences of the same kind combine with science and philosophy in moulding the ethical thought of the present day.
But the ethical tone of a treatise and the ethical interest of its author are not always a guarantee that ethical conceptions have a secure position in his system of thought.
They are now published in the hope that they may prove of interest to those who heard them, and to others who may desire an account, in short compass and in popular form, of some leading features of the ethicalthought of the present day.
In such a case the new ethical reflexion may have a disintegrating effect upon the traditional code, and give to the movement the character and importance of a revolution.
Let us cultivate our sense of ethical values and of ethical perspective rather than to crouch behind a shrub until it looks like a forest.
It is for you, gentlemen, to see that moral andethical progress is unbroken.
They are sure to bring to him their ethical questions on games and sport; he knows more about boys' fights and struggles than does the mother.
The most important recent book on the family; traces its historical development, the ethical ideals involved in the institution, and discusses its present problems and perplexities.
All ethical teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the quickening of loyalty to high ideals, the doing of the right for reasons of love as well as of duty and profit.
The ethical method of handling fiction falls between two stools; it not only fails in portraying that which is true for the individual, but it incurs the graver error of ceasing to be true to the race, i.
But the ethical treatment of the short-story, as exemplified in these monkish fables, handicapped its progress and circumscribed its field of endeavor.
Isaak Walton as a diarist had it; Thomas Fuller as an historian had it; John Bunyan as an ethicalwriter had it.
The principle or main proposition of an ethical system is the shortest and most concise definition of the line of conduct which it prescribes, or, if it have no imperative form, of the line of conduct to which it attaches real moral worth.
The entire ethical content of the Old Testament is justice; loving-kindness being that of the New.
But, passing over this, we may say that with Kant the ethical principle appears as something quite independent of experience and its teaching; it is transcendental, or metaphysical.
It seems, therefore, only just that, before I leave this part of my subject, I should bring to remembrance the brilliant and conspicuous service which he nevertheless rendered to ethical science.
This is in truth the proposition which all ethicalwriters expend their energies in endeavouring to account for.
If we succeed in our investigation, we shall necessarily bring to light the true moral incentive; and, as it is upon this that all ethical science must depend, our problem will then be solved.
