CHAPTER V FROM CUSTOM TO CONSCIENCE; FROM GROUP MORALITY TO PERSONAL MORALITY 1. CONTRAST AND COLLISION

1. What the Third Level Means.—Complete morality is reached only when the individual recognizes the right or chooses the good freely, devotes himself heartily to its fulfillment, and seeks a progressive social development in which every member of society shall share. The group morality with its agencies of custom set up a standard, but one that was corporate rather than personal. It approved and disapproved, that is it had an idea of good, but this did not mean a good that was personally valued. It enlisted its members, but it was by drill, by pleasure and pain, and by habit, rather than by fully voluntary action. It secured steadiness by habit and social pressure, rather than by choices built into character. It maintained community of feeling and action, but of the unconscious rather than the definitely social type. Finally it was rather fitted to maintain a fixed order than to promote and safeguard progress. Advance then must (1) substitute some rational method of setting up standards and forming values, in place of habitual passive acceptance; (2) secure voluntary and personal choice and interest, instead of unconscious identification with the group welfare, or instinctive and habitual response to group needs; (3) encourage at the same time individual development and the demand that all shall share in this development—the worth and happiness of the person and of every person.

2. Collisions Involved.—Such an advance brings to consciousness two collisions. The oppositions were there before, but they were not felt as oppositions. So long as the man was fully with his group, or satisfied with the custom, he would make no revolt. When the movement begins the collisions are felt. These collisions are:

(1) The collision between the authority and interests of the group, and the independence and private interests of the individual.

(2) The collision between order and progress, between habit and reconstruction or reformation.

It is evident that there is a close connection between these two collisions; in fact, the second becomes in practice a form of the first. For we saw in the last chapter that custom is really backed and enforced by the group, and its merely habitual parts are as strongly supported as those parts which have a more rational basis. It would perhaps be conceivable that a people should move on all together, working out a higher civilization in which free thought should keep full reverence for social values, in which political liberty should keep even pace with the development of government, in which self-interest should be accompanied by regard for the welfare of others, just as it may be possible for a child to grow into full morality without a period of "storm and stress." But this is not usual. Progress has generally cost struggle. And the first phase of this struggle is opposition between the individual and the group. The self-assertive instincts and impulses were present in group life, but they were in part undeveloped because they had not enough stimulus to call them out. A man could not develop his impulse for possession to its full extent if there was little or nothing for him to possess. In part they were not developed because the group held them back, and the conditions of living and fighting favored those groups which did keep them back. Nevertheless they were present in some degree, always contending against the more social forces. Indeed what makes the opposition between group and individual so strong and so continuous is that both the social and the individual are rooted in human nature. They constitute what Kant calls the unsocial sociableness of man. "Man cannot get on with his fellows and he cannot do without them."

Individualism.—The assertion by the individual of his own opinions and beliefs, his own independence and interests, as over against group standards, authority, and interests, is known as individualism. It is evident that such assertion will always mark a new level of conduct. Action must now be personal and voluntary. It is also evident that it may be either better or worse than the level of custom and group life. The first effect is likely to be, in appearance at least, a change for the worse. The old restraints are tossed aside; "creeds outworn" no longer steady or direct; the strong or the crafty individual comes to the fore and exploits his fellows. Every man does what is "right in his own eyes." The age of the Sophists in Greece, of the Renaissance in Italy, of the Enlightenment and Romantic movement in western Europe, and of the industrial revolution in recent times illustrate different phases of individualism. A people, as well as an individual, may "go to pieces" in its reaction against social authority and custom. But such one-sided individualism is almost certain to call out prophets of a new order; "organic filaments" of new structures appear; family, industry, the state, are organized anew and upon more voluntary basis. Those who accept the new conditions and assume responsibility with their freedom, who direct their choices by reason instead of passion, who "aim at justice and kindness" as well as at happiness, become moral persons and gain thereby new worth and dignity. While, then, the general movement is on the whole a movement of individualism, it demands just as necessarily, if there is to be moral progress, a reconstructed individual—a person who is individual in choice, in feeling, in responsibility, and at the same time social in what he regards as good, in his sympathies, and in his purposes. Otherwise individualism means progress toward the immoral.

§ 2. SOCIOLOGICAL AGENCIES IN THE TRANSITION

The agencies which bring about the change from customary and group morality to conscious and personal morality are varied. Just as character is developed in the child and young man by various means, sometimes by success, sometimes by adversity or loss of a parent, sometimes by slow increase in knowledge, and sometimes by a sudden right-about-face with a strong emotional basis, so it is with peoples. Some, like the Japanese at the present, are brought into sudden contact with the whole set of commercial and military forces from without. Among others, as with the Greeks, a fermentation starts within, along intellectual, economic, political, and religious lines. Or again, national calamities may upset all the old values, as with the Hebrews. But we may note four typical agencies which are usually more or less active.

1. Economic Forces.—The action of economic forces in breaking up the early kinship group or joint family may be noticed in the history of many peoples. The clan flourishes in such conditions of hunting life or of simple agriculture as were found among Australians and Indians, or among the Celts in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. It cannot survive when a more advanced state of agriculture prevails. A certain amount of individualism will appear wherever the advantage for the individual lies in separate industry and private ownership. If buffalo was to be hunted it was better to pool issues, but for smaller game the skilful or persistent huntsman or shepherd will think he can gain more by working for himself. This is intensified when agriculture and commerce take the place of earlier modes of life. The farmer has to work so hard and long, his goal is so far in the future, that differences of character show themselves much more strongly. Hunting and fishing are so exciting, and the reward is so near, that even a man who is not very industrious will do his part. But in agriculture only the hard and patient worker gets a reward and he does not like to share it with the lazy, or even with the weaker. Commerce, bargaining, likewise puts a great premium on individual shrewdness. And for a long time commerce was conducted on a relatively individual basis. Caravans of traders journeyed together for mutual protection but there was not any such organization as later obtained, and each individual could display his own cunning or ability. Moreover commerce leads to the comparison of custom, to interchange of ideas as well as goods. All this tends to break down the sanctity of customs peculiar to a given group. The trader as well as the guest may overstep the barriers set up by kin. The early Greek colonists, among whom a great individualistic movement began, were the traders of their day. The parts of Europe where most survives of primitive group life are those little touched by modern commerce.

But we get a broader view of economic influences if we consider the methods of organizing industry which have successively prevailed. In early society, and likewise in the earlier period of modern civilization, the family was a great economic unit. Many or most of the industries could be advantageously carried on in the household. As in the cases cited above (p. 60) the stronger or adventurous member would be constantly trying to strike out for himself. This process of constant readjustment is, however, far less thoroughgoing in its effects on mores than the three great methods of securing a broader organization of industry. In primitive society large enterprises had to be carried on by the co-operation of the group. Forced labor as used by the Oriental civilizations substituted a method by which greater works like the pyramids or temples could be built, but it brought with it the overthrow of much of the old group sympathies and mutual aid. In Greece and Rome slavery did the drudgery and left the citizens free to cultivate art, letters, and government. It gave opportunity and scope for the few. Men of power and genius arose, and at the same time all the negative forces of individualism asserted themselves. In modern times capitalism is the method for organizing industry and trade. It proves more effective than forced labor or slavery in securing combination of forces and in exploiting natural resources. It likewise gives extraordinary opportunities for the rise of men of organizing genius. The careers of "captains of industry" are more fascinating than those of old-time conquerors because they involve more complex situations, and can utilize the discoveries and labors of more men. But modern capitalism has been as destructive to the morality of the Middle Ages, or even of a hundred years ago, as was forced labor or slavery to the group life and mores which they destroyed.

2. The Progress of Science and the Arts.—The effect of the progress of science and intelligence upon the mores is direct. Comparisons of the customs of one people with those of another bring out differences, and arouse questions as to the reasons for such diversity. And we have seen that there is more or less in the customs for which no reason can be given. Even if there was one originally it has been forgotten. Or again, increasing knowledge of weather and seasons, of plants and animals, of sickness and disease, discredits many of the taboos and ceremonials which the cruder beliefs had regarded as essential to welfare. Certain elements of ritual may survive under the protection of "mysteries," but the more enlightened portion of the community keeps aloof. Instead of the mores with their large infusion of the accidental, the habitual, and the impulsive, increasing intelligence demands some rational rule of life.

And science joins with the various industrial and fine arts to create a new set of interests for the individual. Any good piece of workmanship, any work of art however simple, is twice blest. It blesses him that makes and him that uses or enjoys. The division of labor, begun in group life, is carried further. Craftsmen and artists develop increasing individuality as they construct temples or palaces, fashion statues or pottery, or sing of gods and heroes. Their minds grow with what they do. Side by side with the aspect of art which makes it a bond of society is the aspect which so frequently makes the skilled workman the critic, and the artist a law to himself. In the next place note the effect on those who can use and enjoy the products of the arts. A new world of satisfaction and happiness is opened which each person can enter for himself. In cruder conditions there was not much out of which to build up happiness. Food, labor, rest, the thrill of hunt or contest, the passion of sex, the pride in children—these made up the interests of primitive life. Further means of enjoyment were found chiefly in society of the kin, or in the men's house. But as the arts advanced the individual could have made for him a fine house and elaborate clothing. Metal, wood, and clay minister to increasing wants. A permanent and stately tomb makes the future more definite. The ability to hand down wealth in durable form places a premium on its acquirement. Ambition has more stuff to work with. A more definite, assertive self is gradually built up. "Good" comes to have added meaning with every new want that awakes. The individual is not satisfied any longer to take the group's valuation. He wants to get his own good in his own way. And it will often seem to him that he can get his own good most easily and surely either by keeping out of the common life or by using his fellow men to his own advantage. Men of culture have frequently shown their selfishness in the first way; men of wealth in the second. An aristocracy of culture, or birth, or wealth may come to regard the whole process of civilization as properly ministering to the wants of the select few. Nearly every people which has developed the arts and sciences has developed also an aristocracy. In the ancient world slavery was a part of the process. In modern times other forms of exploitation may serve the purpose better. Individualism, released from the ties which bound up the good of one with the good of all, tends to become exclusive and selfish; civilization with all its opportunities for increasing happiness and increasing life has its moral risks and indirectly, at least, its moral evils.

These evils may appear as the gratification of sense and appetite and thus may be opposed to the higher life of the spirit, which needs no outer objects or luxuries. Or they may appear as rooted in selfishness, in the desire for gratifying the exclusive self of material interests or ambition, as over against sympathy, justice, and kindness, which mark a broadly human and social life. In both cases serious men have sought to overcome by some form of "self-denial" the evils that attend on civilization, even if they are not due to it.

3. Military Forces.—The kinship group is a protection so long as it has to contend only with similar groups. The headlong valor and tribal loyalty of German or Scottish clans may even win conflicts with more disciplined troops of Rome or England. But permanent success demands higher organization than the old clans and tribes permitted. Organization means authority, and a single directing, controlling commander or king. As Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia show their strength the clans of Israel cry, "Nay, but we will have a king over us; that we may also be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles."[43] Wars afford the opportunity for the strong and unscrupulous leader to assert himself. Like commerce they may tend also to spread culture and thus break down barriers of ancient custom. The conquests of Babylon and Alexander, the Crusades and the French Revolution, are instances of the power of military forces to destroy old customs and give individualism new scope. In most cases, it is true, it is only the leader or "tyrant" who gets the advantage. He uses the whole machinery of society for his own elevation. Nevertheless custom and group unity are broken for all. Respect for law must be built new from the foundation.

4. Religious Forces.—While in general religion is a conservative agency, it is also true that a new religion or a new departure in religion has often exercised a powerful influence on moral development. The very fact that religion is so intimately bound up with all the group mores and ideals, makes a change in religion bear directly on old standards of life. The collision between old and new is likely to be fundamental and sharp. A conception of God may carry with it a view of what conduct is pleasing to him. A doctrine as to the future may require a certain mode of life. A cultus may approve or condemn certain relations between the sexes. Conflicting religions may then force a moral attitude in weighing their claims. The contests between Jehovah and Baal, between Orphic cults and the public Greek religion, between Judaism and Christianity, Christianity and Roman civilization, Christianity and Germanic religion, Catholicism and Protestantism, have brought out moral issues. We shall notice this factor especially in Chapters VI. and VIII.

§ 3. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL AGENCIES

The psychological forces which tend toward individualism have been already stated to be the self-assertive instincts and impulses. They are all variations of the effort of the living being first to preserve itself and then to rise to more complicated life by entering into more complex relations and mastering its environment. Spinoza's "sui esse conservare," Schopenhauer's "will to live," Nietzsche's "will to power," the Hebrew's passionate ideal of "life", and Tennyson's "More life, and fuller" express in varying degree the meaning of this elemental bent and process. Growing intelligence adds to its strength by giving greater capacity to control. Starting with organic needs, this developing life process may find satisfactions in the physical world in the increasing power and mastery over nature gained by the explorer or the hunter, the discoverer, the craftsman, or the artist. It is when it enters the world of persons that it displays a peculiar intensity that marks the passions of individualism par excellence. We note four of these tendencies toward self-assertion.

1. Sex.—The sex instinct and emotion occupies a peculiar position in this respect. On the one hand it is a powerful socializing agency. It brings the sexes together and is thus fundamental to the family. But on the other hand it is constantly rebelling against the limits and conventions established by the social group for its regulation. The statutes against illicit relations, from the codes of Hammurabi and Moses to the latest efforts for stricter divorce, attest the collision between the individual's inclination and the will of the group. Repeatedly some passion of sex has broken over all social, legal, and religious sanctions. It has thus been a favorite theme of tragedy from the Greeks to Ibsen. It finds another fitting medium in the romance. It has called into existence and maintains in every large city an outcast colony of wretched creatures, and the evils which attend are not limited in their results to those who knowingly take the risks. It has worked repeated changes in the structure of the family authorized by society. Its value and proper regulation were points at issue in that wide-reaching change of mores attendant upon the Reformation, and apparently equilibrium has not yet been reached.

2. The Demand for Possession and Private Property.—In the primitive group we have seen that there might be private property in tools or weapons, in cattle or slaves. There was little private property in land under the maternal clan; and indeed in any case, so long as the arts were undeveloped, private property had necessary limits. The demand for private property is a natural attendant upon individual modes of industry. As we have said, it was a common principle that what the group produced was owned by the group, and what the individual made or captured was treated as his. When individual industry came to count for more, the individual claimed more and more as private possession.

The change from the maternal clan to the paternal family or household was a reËnforcement to the individual control of property. The father could hand down his cattle or his house to his son. The joint family of India is indeed a type of a paternal system. Nevertheless the tendency is much stronger to insist on individual property where the father's goods pass to his son than where they go to his sister's children.

The chiefs or rulers were likely to gain the right of private property first. Among certain families of the South Slavs to-day, the head has his individual eating utensils, the rest share. Among many people the chiefs have cattle which they can dispose of as they will; the rest have simply their share of the kin's goods. The old Brehon laws of Ireland show this stage.

But however it comes about, the very meaning of property is, in the first place, exclusion of others from some thing which I have. It is therefore in so far necessarily opposed to group unity, opposed to any such simple solidarity of life as we find in group morality. As the American Indian accepts land in severalty, the old group life, the tribal restraints and supports, the group custom and moral unity that went with it, are gone. He must find a new basis or go to pieces.

3. Struggles for Mastery or Liberty.—In most cases these cannot be separated from economic struggles. Masters and slaves were in economic as well as personal relations, and nearly all class contests on a large scale have had at least one economic root, whatever their other sources. But the economic is not their only root. There have been wars for glory or for liberty as well as for territory or booty or slaves. As the struggle for existence has bred into the race the instinct of self-defense with its emotion of anger, the instinct to rivalry and mastery, and the corresponding aversion to being ruled, so the progress of society shows trials of strength between man and man, kin and kin, tribe and tribe. And while, as stated in the preceding chapter, the coÖperation made necessary in war or feud is a uniting force, there is another side to the story. Contests between individuals show who is master; contests between groups tend to bring forward leaders. And while such masterful men may serve the group they are quite as likely to find an interest in opposing group customs. They assert an independence of the group, or a mastery over it, quite incompatible with the solidarity of the kinship clan, although the patriarchal type of household under a strong head may be quite possible. There comes to be one code for rich and another for poor, one for Patricians and another for Plebs, one for baron and another for peasant, one for gentry and another for the common folk. For a time this may be accepted patiently. But when once the rich become arrogant, the feudal lord insolent, the bitter truth is faced that the customs have become mere conventions. They no longer hold. All the old ties are cast off. The demand for freedom and equality rises, and the collision between authority and liberty is on.

Or the contest may be for intellectual liberty—for free thought and free speech. It is sometimes considered that such liberty meets its strongest opponent in the religious or ecclesiastical organization. There is no doubt a conservative tendency in religion. As we have pointed out, religion is the great conservator of group values and group standards. Its ritual is most elaborate, its taboos most sacred. Intellectual criticism tends to undermine what is outgrown or merely habitual here as elsewhere. Rationalism or free thought has set itself in frequent opposition likewise to what has been claimed to be "above reason." Nevertheless it would be absurd to attribute all the individualism to science and all the conservatism to religion. Scientific dogmas and "idols" are hard to displace. Schools are about as conservative as churches. And on the other hand the struggle for religious liberty has usually been carried on not by the irreligious but by the religious. The prophet Amos found himself opposed by the religious organization of his day when he urged social righteousness, and the history of the noble army of martyrs is a record of appeal to individual conscience, or to an immediate personal relation to God, as over against the formal, the traditional, the organized religious customs and doctrines of their age. The struggle for religious toleration and religious liberty takes its place side by side with the struggles for intellectual and political liberty in the chapters of individualism.

4. The Desire for Honor, or Social Esteem.—James, in his psychology of the self, calls the recognition which a man gets from his mates his "social self." "We are not only gregarious animals, liking to be in sight of our fellows, but we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably by our kind. No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof."[44] From such a punishment "the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief; for this would make us feel that however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such depth as to be unworthy of attention at all."[45] Honor or fame is a name for one of the various "social selves" which a man may build up. It stands for what those of a given group may think or say of him. It has a place and a large place in group life. Precedence, salutations, decorations in costume and bodily ornament, praises in song for the brave, the strong, the cunning, the powerful, with ridicule for the coward or the weakling are all at work. But with the primitive group the difference between men of the group is kept within bounds. When more definite organization of groups for military or civil purposes begins, when the feudal chief gathers his retainers and begins to rise above the rest of the community in strength, finally when the progress of the arts gives greater means for display, the desire for recognition has immensely greater scope. It is increased by the instinct of emulation; it often results in envy and jealousies. It becomes then a powerful factor in stimulating individualism.

But while desires for honor and fame provoke individualism, they carry with them, like desires for property and power, elements that make for reconstruction of the social on a higher level. For honor implies some common sentiment to which the individual can make appeal. Group members praise or blame what accords with their feeling or desire, but they do not act as individuals merely, praising what pleases them as individuals. They react more or less completely from the group point of view; they honor the man who embodies the group-ideal of courage, or other admirable and respected qualities. And here comes the motive which operates to force a better ideal than mere desire of praise. No group honors the man who is definitely seeking merely its applause rather than its approval—at least not after it has found him out. The force of public opinion is therefore calculated to elicit a desire to be worthy of honor, as well as to be honored. This means a desire to act as a true social individual, for it is only the true member of the group,—true clansman,—true patriot,—true martyr,—who appeals to the other members when they judge as members, and not selfishly. When now the group whose approval is sought is small, we have class standards, with all the provincialism, narrowness, and prejudice that belong to them. As the honor-seeker is merely after the opinion of his class, he is bound to be only partly social. So long as he is with his kin, or his set, or his "gang," or his "party," or his "union," or his "country"—regardless of any wider appeal—he is bound to be imperfectly rational and social in his conduct. The great possibilities of the desire for honor, and of the desire to be worthy of honor, lie then in the constant extension of the range. The martyr, the seeker for truth, the reformer, the neglected artist, looks for honor from posterity; if misjudged or neglected, he appeals to mankind. He is thus forming for himself an ideal standard. And if he embodies this ideal standard in a personal, highest possible judging companion, his desire to be worthy of approval takes a religious form. He seeks "the honor that is from God." Though "the innermost of the empirical selves of a man is a self of the social sort, it yet can find its only adequate socius in an ideal world."[46]

The moral value of these three forces of individualism was finely stated by Kant:

We have spoken of the "forces" which tend to break down the old unity of the group and bring about new organization. But of course these forces are not impersonal. Sometimes they seem to act like the ocean tide, pushing silently in, and only now and then sending a wave a little higher than its fellows. Frequently, however, some great personality stands out preËminent, either as critic of the old or builder of the new. The prophets were stoned because they condemned the present; the next generation was ready to build their sepulchers. Socrates is the classic example of the great man who perishes in seeking to find a rational basis to replace that of custom. Indeed, this conflict—on the one hand, the rigid system of tradition and corporate union hallowed by all the sanctions of religion and public opinion; upon the other, the individual making appeal to reason, or to his conscience, or to a "higher law"—is the tragedy of history.

§ 4. POSITIVE RECONSTRUCTION

It must not be supposed that the moral process stops at the points indicated under the several divisions of this last section. As already stated, if the people really works out a higher type of conscious and personal morality, it means not only a more powerful individual, but a reconstructed individual and a reconstructed society. It means not only the disintegration of the old kinship or family group, which is an economic, political, and religious unity as well. It means the construction of a new basis for the family; new moral principles for business; a distinct political state with new means for government, new conceptions of authority and liberty; finally, a national or universal religion. And the individual must on this higher level choose all these voluntarily. More than this: as he chooses in the presence of the new conflicting ends presented by individualism, he sets up or adopts a standard for himself. He thinks definitely of what is "good" and "right." As he recognizes its claim, he is responsible as well as free. As he identifies himself heartily with it, he becomes sincerely and genuinely moral. Reverence, duty, and love for what is good become the quickening emotions. Thoughtfulness, self-control, aspiration toward an ideal, courageous venturing in its achievement, kindness and justice, become the dominant temper, or at least are recognized as the temper that should be dominant. The conception of moral character and moral personality is brought to consciousness. The development of the Hebrews and Greeks will show how these positive values emerge.

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