First, then, what is the real meaning of the social consciousness, as the theologian must view it? The answer to this question involves a preliminary one: What is the point of view of the theologian in any investigation? One can only give his own answer.

First of all, the theologian, as such, is an interpreter, not a tracer of causal connections. He builds everywhere upon the scientific investigator, and takes from him the statement of facts and processes. With these he has primarily nothing to do. With reference to the social consciousness, therefore, he does not attempt to do over again the work of the sociologist; he asks only, What does the social consciousness, in the light of the whole of life and thought, mean; not, How did it come about?

The theologian, too, is a believer in the supremacy of spiritual interests; this is his central contention. He affirms strenuously, with the scientific worker, the place and value of the mechanical; but he is certain that the mechanical can understand itself even, only as it is seen to be simple means, and thus clearly subordinate in significance. His problem is, therefore, everywhere, that of ideal interpretation, not of mechanical explanation. But, while he has nothing to do with the scientific tracing of immediate causal connections, he recognizes causality itself as requiring an ultimate explanation, that cannot be mechanically given. The theologian must be in this, then, an ideal interpreter, and an inquirer after the ultimate cause.

The theologian assumes, moreover, the legitimacy and value of the fact of religion; for theology is simply the thoughtful, comprehensive, and unified expression of what religion means to us. The meaning of the social consciousness to the theologian involves, therefore, at once the question of its relation to religious conviction.

The point of view of the Christian theologian involves, besides, the reality of the personal God in personal relation to persons. Theology is in earnest in its thought of God, and knows that God is everywhere to be taken into account; that, if there is a God at all, he is not to be exiled into some corner of his universe, but is intimately concerned in all, is at the very heart of all; and that, therefore, it is not a matter of merely curious interest or of subsidiary inquiry, whether we are to look at our questions with God in mind.

Finally, the Christian theologian tries everywhere to make his point of view the point of view of Christ. The theology, upon which he ultimately stakes his all, is Christ's theology. He knows that there is much concerning which he cannot refuse to think, but upon which Christ has not expressed himself either explicitly or by clear inference; but in all this unavoidable supplementary thinking he aims to be absolutely loyal to the spirit of Christ.

From this point of view of the Christian theologian, now, what does the social consciousness mean? The answer may be given under four heads: (1) the definition of the social consciousness; (2) the inadequacy of the analogy of the organism, as an expression of the social consciousness; (3) the necessity of the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be supreme; (4) the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness.

These four topics form the subjects of the four chapters of the first division of our inquiry.

CHAPTER I
THE DEFINITION OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The simplest and probably the most accurate single expression we can give to the social consciousness, is to say that it is a growing sense of the real brotherhood of men. But five elements seem plainly involved in this, and may be profitably separated in our thought, if that is to be clear and definite:—a deepening sense (1) of the likeness or like-mindedness of men, (2) of their mutual influence, (3) of the value and sacredness of the person, (4) of mutual obligation, and (5) of love.

I. THE SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN[1]

If a society is "a group of like-minded individuals," if the "all-essential" requisites for coÖperation are "like-mindedness and consciousness of kind," as Giddings tells us, then certainly a prime element in the social consciousness is likeness and the sense of it—a growing sense of the mental and moral resemblance and "potential resemblance" of all men, and of all classes of men, though not equality of powers.

"Equality of need" among men, too,[2] to which sociology comes as one of its surest conclusions, implies a common capacity, even if in varying degrees, to enter into the most fundamental interests of life, and so points unmistakably to the essential likeness of men in the most important things.

So, too, sociology's unquestioning assertion that both smaller and larger groups of men constantly tend toward unity, assumes potential resemblance.

And the uniform experience and prescription of social workers, that really knowing "how the other half lives" brings increasing sympathy, also affirm the fundamental likeness of men. Every painstaking investigation of a social question comes out at some point or other with a fresh discovery of a previously hidden, underlying resemblance between classes of men.

From the careful, inductive study of social evolution, too, the men of our day see, as no other generation has seen, that the great force always and everywhere at work in that evolution has been likeness and the consciousness of it.

For all these reasons, this generation believes, as men never believed before, in the essential like-mindedness of men; and this deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men is certainly one element in the modern social consciousness.

II. THE SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN

A second element in the social consciousness, and, perhaps, that which has most of all characterized it through the larger period of its growth, is the strong sense of the mutual influence of men—that we are all "members one of another."

1. Contributing Lines of Thought.—It is worth seeing how firmly planted the idea is. Several lines of thought have united to induce men to emphasize—perhaps even to over-emphasize—this way of thinking of society. The influence of natural science, in the first place, has been inevitably in this direction. Its root idea of the universality of law forces upon one the thought of a world which is a coherent whole, a unity with universal forces in it, in which every part is inextricably connected with every other. So, too, the acceptance of the theory of evolution has led science to regard the whole history of the physical universe as an organic growth.

Psychology, also, with its present-day emphasis, in Baldwin and Royce, upon the constant presence and fundamental character of imitation, and its insistence upon the still more fundamental impulsiveness of consciousness which Dewey believes underlies imitation,[3] is really proclaiming exactly this element of the social consciousness. And the whole assertion by the later psychology of the unity of man—mind and body, and of the complex intertwining of all the functions of the mind, is in closest harmony with a similar view of society.

Philosophy, too, is exerting all along a half-unconscious pressure toward the thought of the organic unity of society. That philosophy may exist at all, it must start from the assumption of a universe, a real unity of truth, and its problem is to find a discerned unity. It knows no unrelated being, and, consequently, whether it theoretically accepts the formulation or not, it must admit that, as a matter of fact, to be is to be in relations. It asserts as a universal fact, what natural science and psychology both affirm in their own respective spheres, the concrete relatedness of all. It cannot well deny the same thought when applied to society. Its repeated attempts, moreover, to conceive all as a developing unity, and the profound influence of the analogy of the organism upon its history, both further sustain the organic view of society.

Christianity, as well, has been a powerful factor in this direction from the beginning, for it really first gave the Idea of Humanity.[4]

2. The Threefold Form of the Conviction.—Sustained, now, by all these movements in natural science, psychology, philosophy, and Christianity, this thought of the mutual influence of men has taken three forms: that mutual influence is inevitable, isolation impossible; that mutual influence is desirable, isolation to be shunned; that mutual influence is indispensable, isolation blighting.

(1) This second element in the social consciousness has meant, then, in the first place, a growing sense of the inevitableness of the mutual influence of all men, and of all classes of men; that we are all parts of one whole, each part unavoidably affected by every other; that we are bound up in one bundle of life with all men, and cannot live an isolated life if we would; that we do influence one another whether we will or not, and tend unconsciously to draw others to our level and are ourselves drawn toward theirs; that we joy and suffer together whether we will or not, and grow or deteriorate together.

(2) But the mutual influence of men means more than this: not only that we do inevitably affect one another in living out our own life, but a growing sense of the fact that we are obviously not intended to come to our best in independence of one another; that we are made on so large a plan that we cannot come to our best alone; that we are evidently made for personal relations, and that, therefore, largeness of life for ourselves depends on our entering into the life of others.

(3) But even more than this is true. It is not only that entering into the life of others is a help in my life, it is the great help, the one great means, the indispensable, the essential condition of all largeness of life; it is the very meaning of life,—life itself. We are to find our life only in losing our life. Life is the fulfilment of relations. When we try to run away from the variety and complexity of these relations, we are running away from life itself. The indispensableness of these relations to others is assumed, also, in the assertion by the sociologist of an evolution toward a society, at once more and more complex, and more and more perfect.

But if I grow in the growth of another, the other grows in my growth. If the only thing of value that I can finally give is myself, the value of that gift depends upon the largeness and richness of the self given. For love's own sake, therefore, I must grow, must strive to bring to its highest perfection that work which is given me to do. A person is a social being called to contribute to the whole, in the line of his own best possibilities. One's largest ministry to others is to be rendered, then, through sacred regard for one's own calling, considered as exactly his place of largest service. Or, to put it the other way: I can come to my best only in work so great and in associations so large that I may lose myself in them in perfect objectivity.

The mutual influence of men, therefore, is unavoidable, is desirable, is indispensable; isolation impossible, hindering, blighting. This is the true solidarity of the race, in which there is no fiction, no hiding in the inconceivable, and no pretense.

III. THE SENSE OF THE VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON

The third element in the social consciousness, the sense of the value and sacredness of the person, follows naturally from the sense of like-mindedness and of mutual influence, but needs distinct and emphatic statement.

It is less easily separable than the other elements named, and, indeed, may be made to include all the others, and does, in a way, carry all with it. Thus broadly conceived, it has seemed to the writer that—with the return to the historical Christ—it might well be called the most notable moral characteristic of our time.[5] But, though less easily and definitely discriminated, one who knows deeply the modern social consciousness would surely feel that the very heart of it had been omitted, if this growing sense of the value and sacredness of the person did not come to strong expression. Reverence for personality—the steadily deepening sense that every person has a value not to be measured in anything else, and is in himself sacred to God and man—this it is which marks unmistakably every step in the progress of the individual and of the race. Without it, whatever the other marks of civilization, you have only tyranny and slavery; with it, though every trace of luxury and scientific invention be lacking, you have the perfection of human relations.

This sense of the value and sacredness of the person not only characterizes increasingly the whole social and moral evolution of the race, but it is to be seen in the clearly conscious demand for equality of rights, and, especially—to take a single example—in the growing recognition that the child is an individual with his own rights; that he has a personality of his own of a sanctity inviolable by the parent; that there are clear bounds beyond which no one may go without personal outrage. The recognition by psychology of respect for personality as one of the three or four most fundamental conditions—if not the most essential of all—of happiness, of character, and of influence, is explicit confirmation of the truth of this element of the social consciousness.

IV. THE SENSE OF OBLIGATION

But the elements of the social consciousness already named lead directly to a growing sense of obligation. Every man carries in himself his only possible standard of measurement of all else. A growing sense of the likeness of other men to himself quickens at once, therefore, the sense of obligation, and leads naturally to the Golden Rule. Recognition of mutual influence, too, inevitably carries with it a deeper sense of obligation; for, if we do affect others constantly, then we are manifestly under obligation not only to do direct service to others, but so to order our own lives as to help, not to hinder, others. The sense of the value and sacredness of the person plainly looks to the same deepening of obligation.

As an element of the social consciousness, the sense of obligation means for a given individual, a growing sense of responsibility for all; and for society at large an increase in the number of those who feel the obligation to serve.

The growth in each of these directions cannot be questioned. There is no privileged class, in whose own consciences there is not being recognized more and more the right of the claim that they must justify themselves by service which shall be as unique as their privilege. In consequence, the conception of the governing classes is steadily changing, for both the governed and the governing, to some recognition of Christ's principle, that he who would be first must be servant of all. The sharp insistence of the sociologist that "organization must be for the organized" expresses the same thought. One must add sociology's double assertion, that society is really advancing toward its goal, and yet that a chief condition of the progress of society is unselfish leadership.[6] This can only mean that there is, increasingly, unselfish leadership, more and more of conscious, willing coÖperation on the part of men in forwarding the social evolution. None of us can return to the older attitude of comparative indifference, nor can we honestly defend it. We do have obligations and we own them; we are judging ourselves increasingly by Christ's test of ministering love.

V. THE SENSE OF LOVE

And the social consciousness ends necessarily in love, in the broader, ethical meaning of that word. We shall never feel that the social consciousness is complete, short of real love. All the other elements of the social consciousness lead to love and are included in it. Even the sociologist must bring in as necessary results of the consciousness of kind—sympathy, affection, and desire for the recognition of others;[7] and he finds these always more or less distinctly at work among men.

These further considerations from the study of evolution confirm this result: that man is preËminently the social animal;[8] that with man we have clearly reached the stage of persons and of personal relations;[9] that the very existence and development of man required love at every step;[10] and that the chief moral significance of man's prolonged infancy is probably to be found in the necessary calling out of love.[11]

So, too, it has become constantly more and more clear that our obligation, what we owe to others, is ourselves; and the giving of the self is love. It seems to be thrust home upon social workers everywhere that there is no solution of any social problem without a personal self-giving in some way on the part of some; that there is no cheaper way than this very costly one of love, of the giving of ourselves—whether in the family, or in charity, or in criminology.

The point, already noted, that the progress of society depends on leaders who will serve with unselfish devotion, is only another emphasis upon love as an indispensable element of the social consciousness.

And the social goal—equality, brotherhood, liberty, when these terms are given any adequate ethical content—is absolutely unthinkable in any really vital sense without love.

Any attempted definition of love, moreover, resolves at once into what we mean by the social consciousness. If we define love as the giving of self, this is exactly what, with growing clearness and insistence, the social consciousness demands. If with Herrmann we call love, "joy in personal life"—joy, that is, in the revelation of personal life, this can only come in that trustful, reverent, self-surrendering association to which the social consciousness exhorts. If with Edwards we call love, willing the highest and completest good of all, we reach the same result. Or if with Christ in the Beatitudes, or with Paul in the thirteenth of I Corinthians, we study the characteristics of love, we shall hardly doubt that a complete social consciousness must have these marks of love.

These elements, then, make up the social consciousness: the sense of like-mindedness, of mutual influence, of the value and sacredness of the person, of obligation, and of love; and all these, with their implied demands, only point to what a person must be if he is to be fully personal.

With this definition in mind, we may now ask, whether the analogy of the organism can adequately express the social consciousness.

CHAPTER II
THE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY OF THE ORGANISM
AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS[12]

I. THE VALUE OF THE ANALOGY

The analogy of the organism has played so large a part in the history of thought, especially in the consideration of ethical and social questions, that it is well worth while to ask exactly how far this analogy is adequate, although the danger of the abuse of the analogy is probably somewhat less than formerly.

It may be said at once that it is, undoubtedly, the very best illustration of these social relations that we can draw from nature, and it is of real value. It has had, moreover, as already indicated, a most influential and largely honorable history in the development of the thought of men. Its classical expression is in the epoch-making twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, which makes so plain the ethical applications of the analogy.

II. THE INEVITABLE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY

1. Comes from the Sub-personal World.—But it ought clearly to be seen, on the other hand, that, considered as a complete expression of the social consciousness, it is necessarily inadequate; and it is of moment that we should not be dominated by it. Too often it has been made to cover the entire ground, as though in itself it were a complete expression and final explanation of the social consciousness, instead of a quite incomplete illustration. For, in the first place, the very fact that the analogy comes from the physical world, from the sub-personal realm, makes it certain that it must fail at vital points in the expression of what is peculiarly a personal and ethical fact. We cannot safely argue directly from the physical illustration to ethical propositions.

2. Access to Reality, Only Through Ourselves.—Moreover, in this day of extraordinary attention to the physical world, it is particularly important that we should keep constantly in mind that we have direct access to reality only in ourselves; that man is himself necessarily the only key which we can use for any ultimate understanding of anything; or, as Paulsen puts it, "I know reality as it is in itself, in so far as I am real myself, or in so far as it is, or is like, that which I am, namely, spirit."[13] We are not to forget that, in very truth, we know better what we mean by persons and personal relations, than we do what we mean by members of a body and by organic relations; and, further, that in point of fact, all those metaphysical notions by which we strive to think things are ultimately derived from ourselves; and that then we illogically turn back upon our own minds, from which all these notions came, to explain the mind in the same secondary way in which we explain other things.

3. Mistaken Passion for Construing Everything.—Natural science, with its sole problem of the tracing of immediate causal connections, naturally provokes a persistent, but nevertheless thoroughly mistaken, "passion," as Lotze calls it,[14] "for construing everything,"—even the most real and final reality, spirit; which wishes to see even this real and final reality explained as the mechanical result of the combination of simpler elements, themselves, it is to be noted, finally absolutely inexplicable. Such perverse attempts will be widely hailed, by many who do not understand themselves, as highly scientific. And one who refuses to enter upon such investigations will be criticized by such minds as "hardly getting into grips with his subject."

But it is a false application of the scientific instinct that leads one to seek mechanical explanation for the final reality, or that urges to precision of formulation beyond that warranted by the data. It is from exactly this falsely scientific bias that theology needs deliverance. "For," as Aristotle reminds us, "it is the mark of a man of culture to try to attain exactness in each kind of knowledge just so far as the nature of the subject allows." There is a wise agnosticism that is violated alike by negative and by positive dogmatism. It is often overlooked that there is an over-wise radicalism that assumes a knowledge of the depth of the finite and infinite, quite as insistent and dogmatic as the view it supposes itself to be opposing. "I know it is not so," it ought not to need to be said, is not agnosticism.

The guiding principle in a truly scientific theology is this, as Lotze suggests: Just so far as changing action depends upon altering conditions, we have explanatory and constructive problems to solve, and no farther. No philosophical view can do without a simply given reality. And we shall never succeed in understanding by what machinery reality is manufactured—in "deducing the whole positive content of reality from mere modifications of formal conditions."[15]

We shall not allow ourselves to be misled, therefore, by the scientific sound of the detailed application of the analogy of the organism to the facts of the social consciousness. And it is a satisfaction to see that the clearest sociological writers are coming to agree that there is strictly no "social mind" that can be affirmed to exist as a separate reality, supposed to answer to society conceived in its totality as an organism.

III. THE ANALOGY TESTED BY THE DEFINITION
OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

When, now, we test the analogy of the organism by its competency to express the full meaning of the social consciousness, as it has been defined, we must say that the analogy but feebly expresses the likeness of men; it best expresses the inevitableness of mutual influence, though even here there is no understandable ultimate explanation; it fairly expresses the desirableness and indispensableness of mutual influence, but, of course, with entire lack of ethical meaning; and it quite fails to express the sense of the value and the sacredness of the person, the sense of obligation, and the sense of love. We need to see and feel exactly these shortcomings, if we are not to abuse the analogy. There is no social consciousness that will hold water that does not rest on what Phillips Brooks called "a healthy and ineradicable individualism," in the sense of the recognition of the fully personal. We are spirits, not organisms, and society is a society of persons, not an organism, in a strict sense. Why should we wish to make society less significant than it is?

CHAPTER III
THE NECESSITY OF THE FACTS, OF WHICH THE SOCIAL
CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE REFLECTION, IF IDEAL
INTERESTS ARE TO BE SUPREME

I. THE QUESTION

With this positive and negative definition of the social consciousness in our minds, a third question immediately suggests itself to one who wishes to go to the bottom of our theme. Why must the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, be as they are if ideal interests are to be supreme? What has a theodicy to say as to these facts? Why, that is, from the point of view of the ideal—of religion and theology—why are we constituted so alike? so that we must influence one another? so that the results of our actions necessarily go over into the lives of others? so that the innocent suffer with the guilty and the guilty profit with the righteous? so that we must recognize everywhere the claim of others? so that we must respect their personality? and so that we must love them?

II. OTHERWISE NO MORAL WORLD AT ALL

The answer to all these world-old questions may perhaps be contained in the single statement, that otherwise we should have no moral world at all. There would be no thinkable moral universe, but rather as many worlds as there are individuals, having no more to do with one another than the chemical reactions going on in a set of test-tubes.

1. The Prerequisites of a Moral World. For our human thinking, assuredly, there are certain prerequisites, that the world may be at all a sphere for moral training and action. What are these prerequisites for a moral world? There must be, in the first place, a sphere of universal law, to count on, within which all actions take place. In a lawless world, action could hardly take on any significance—least of all ethical significance. That freedom itself should mean anything in outward expression, there must be the possibility of intelligent use of means toward the ends chosen.

There must be, in the second place, some real ethical freedom, some power of moral initiative. We need not quarrel about the terms used; but, as Paulsen intimates, no serious ethical writer ever doubted that men have at least some power to shape their own characters.[16] Without that assumption, we have a whole world of ideas and ideals—many of them the realest facts in the world to us—that have no legitimate excuse for being, that are simple insanities of the most inexplicable sort. The very meaning of the personality, indeed, which the social consciousness must demand for men, is some real existence for self, that is, some real self-consciousness and moral initiative.

And freedom is not enough; there must be also some power of accomplishment. To ascribe mere volition to man seems, it has been justly said, sophistical. Results are needed to reveal the character of our acts, even to ourselves—to make that character real. Lotze's charge that the world is imperfect because it might have been so made that only good designs could be carried out, or so that the results of evil volitions would be at once corrected,[17] is itself similarly sophistical. Such a world, in which the outward results of action never appear, would be but a play-world after all—only a nursery of babes not yet capable of character. It could be no fit world for moral training.

And still more, not less, must this law of the necessary results of actions hold in our relations to other persons. There can be, least of all, a moral universe where we are not members one of another. Character, in any form we can conceive it, could not then exist. Our best, as well as our worst, possibilities are involved in these necessary mutual relations. Moral character has meaning only in personal relations. The results, therefore, which follow upon action, if the character of our deed is to have reality for us, must be chiefly personal. The realm of character has fearful possibilities. This is no play-world. We can cause and be caused suffering, and our sin necessarily carries the suffering, if not the sin, of others with it.

2. The Ideal World Requires, thus, the Facts of the Social Consciousness.—All this could be changed in any vital way only by shutting up every soul absolutely to itself, and with that result life has simply ceased.

For we cannot really conceive a person as having any reason for being without such relations. He would be constantly baffled at every point, for he is made for persons and personal relations. Love, too, the highest source of both character and happiness, requires everywhere personal relations. Religion itself, as a sharing of the life of God, would be impossible without some relation to others; for God, at least, could not be separated from the life of all. That is, persons, love, religion, in such a world, have gone.

This, then, simply means that the ideal world ceases to be, with the denial of the facts that the social consciousness reflects. We must be full persons, social beings in the entire meaning demanded by the social consciousness—hard as the consequences involved often are—if ideal interests are to be supreme. Indeed, the very moral judgment, that incessantly prompts the problem of evil for every one of us, is required, for its own existence, to assume the validity of the relations about which it questions. For it complains, for the most part, of those facts that follow inevitably from the necessary mutual influence of men; but the chief sources of the joy it requires, that it may justify the world, lie in these same mutual relations. It assumes, thus, in its claims on the world, the validity and worth of the very relations of which it complains in its criticism of the world. Or, slightly to vary the statement, the major premise, even of pessimism, is that a really justifiable world must have worth in the joy it yields in personal life, impossible out of the personal relations of a real moral universe. And there can be no moral universe without the facts reflected in the social consciousness. The ideal world requires, then, the facts of the social consciousness.

CHAPTER IV
THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATION AND GROUND OF THE
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The most important and fundamental inquiry as to the possible help of theology to the social consciousness still remains: What is the ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness? This question includes two: (1) How can it be metaphysically that we do influence one another? (2) What is required for the final positive justification of the social consciousness as ethical? Theology's answer to both questions is found in the being and character of God, the creative and moral source of all.

I. HOW CAN IT BE, METAPHYSICALLY, THAT WE DO
INFLUENCE ONE ANOTHER?

First, then, how can it be that we do influence one another? What is the final explanation of the constant fact of our reciprocal action? For in our final thinking we may not ignore this question. 1. Not Due to the Physical Fact of Race-Connection.—It may be worth while saying, first, that the physical fact of race-connection, if that could be proved, would be no sufficient explanation. The race may, or may not, be dependent upon a single pair, but in any case this is not the essential connection. The race is one by virtue of its essential likeness, however that comes about. Men might have sprung out of the ground in absolute individual independence of one another, and yet if there were such actual like-mindedness as now exists, the race would be as truly one as it now is, and as capable of reciprocal action, and its members under the same obligation to one another. No ideal interest is at stake, then, in the question of the actual physical unity of the race as descended from one pair.

One may say, of course, that the physical unity of the race would naturally result, according to the laws apparently prevailing in the animal world, in likeness. And this may, therefore, seem to him the most natural proximate explanation. But, even so, it is well to know that our entire moral interest is in the essential likeness and mutual influence of men, however brought about, and not in the physical unity of men. Theology has no occasion to continue its earlier excessive and quite fundamental emphasis upon this physical unity. Moreover, such an explanation is necessarily but proximate. Back of it lies the deeper question, Why just these laws, and modes of procedure?

2. We are not to Over-Emphasize the Principle of Heredity.—Nor can theology, from any point of view, afford to over-emphasize the principle of heredity if it wishes to keep human initiative at all. It is a dangerous alliance which the old-school theology with its racial sin in Adam has been so ready to make with the principle of heredity. That principle, as they wish to use it, proves quite too much; and careful thinkers, really awake to ideal interests, may well rejoice in the comparative relief which science itself, through the probably somewhat exaggerated protest of the Weismann or Neo-Darwinian school, seems likely to afford from the incubus of a grossly exaggerated heredity. The main interest for the ideal view lies right here. We can see why this law of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," in Professor James' language, "should not be verified in the human race, and why, therefore, in looking for evidence on the subject, we should confine ourselves exclusively to lower animals. In them fixed habit is the essential and characteristic law of nervous action. The brain grows to the exact modes in which it has been exercised, and the inheritance of these modes—then called instincts—would have in it nothing surprising. But in man the negation of all fixed modes is the essential characteristic. He owes his whole preËminence as a reasoner, his whole human quality of intellect, we may say, to the facility with which a given mode of thought in him may suddenly be broken up into elements, which re-combine anew. Only at the price of inheriting no settled instinctive tendencies is he able to settle every novel case by the fresh discovery by his reason of novel principles. He is, par excellence, the educable animal."[18]

To over-emphasize the principle of heredity, then, is to strike at one of the most fundamental distinctive human qualities, and so to endanger every ideal interest. The growing like-mindedness of men and their mutual influence are not forthwith to be ascribed to an omnipotent principle of heredity. 3. Not Due to a Mystical Solidarity.—Nor is the mutual influence of men to be explained by any mystical solidarity of the race considered as a finite whole. It is a simple and reasonable scientific demand, that we should not assume a mysterious, indefinable and incalculable cause, where known and intelligible causes suffice to explain the phenomena in question. Do we need, or can we intelligently use, a mystical solidarity? The only solidarity of the race which we seem really to need, or with which we seem able intelligently to deal, is the actual like-mindedness and the actual personal relations themselves—the reciprocal action of spirits—the only kind of reciprocal action which we can finally fully conceive. Any other finite solidarity than this, though it has often figured in theology, seems to me only a name without significance. In any case, we need to insist in theology, much more than we have, upon that unity of the race which is due to the actual likeness of men and their actual mutual personal influence. Such a unity we know and can understand, and it is of the highest ethical and spiritual importance. But to make much of the physical unity is to ground the spiritual in the physical; and, on the other hand, to take refuge in a mystical solidarity—and this is often felt to be a rather deep procedure—for whatever theological purpose, is to hide in the fog of the obscure and unintelligible.

4. Grounded in the Immanence of God.—But back of all finite phenomena, we may still ask for an ultimate explanation of the possibility of any reciprocal action even between spirits. And it is, perhaps, this ultimate explanation after which the idea of a mystical solidarity of the race is blindly groping. Unless one chooses to accept reciprocal action as a necessarily given fact in any universe (and this position, I think with F. C. S. Schiller, may be reasonably defended),[19] he must somewhere in his thinking ask for its final explanation. And most of those, who try to think things through, feel this pressure. And metaphysics, we do well to remember with Professor James, "means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and consistently."[20] As Lotze puts it: "How a cause begins to produce its immediate effect, how a condition is the foundation of its direct result, it will never be possible to say; yet that cause and effect do thus act must be reckoned among those simple facts that compose the reality which is the object of all our investigation. But there is an intolerable contradiction in the assumption that, though two beings may be wholly independent the one of the other, yet that which takes place in one can be a cause of change in the other; things that do not affect each other at all, cannot at the same time affect each other in such a manner that the one is guided by the other."[21]

This question is fairly thrust upon us by the facts of the social consciousness. How can it be that we do so influence one another? how is our reciprocal action metaphysically possible? The answer of theistic philosophy to this question is found in the being of God.

Upon the metaphysical side, theistic philosophy affirms that we can ascribe independent existence in the highest sense only to God. All else is absolutely dependent for its existence and maintenance upon him. The kind of reality that we demand for man is not that he be outside of God, independent of him; this would not make man more, but less. Every thorough-going theistic view must have this at least in common with pantheism, that it recognizes everywhere a real immanence of God. We are, because God wills in us. This metaphysical relation of the finite to the infinite, to be sure, is not to be conceived spatially or materially; nor, least of all, is it be so conceived as to deny a real self-consciousness and a real moral initiative to the finite spirit; but it does involve the absolute dependence of all the finite upon the will of God. As to our being, we root solely in God. And the unity and consistency of the being of God are the actual ground of our possible reciprocal action. Only so is that contradiction of which Lotze spoke avoided. We are not independent of one another, because we are all alike dependent for our very being upon God. And we are thus members one of another, ultimately, only through him.

The further fact, that we are never fully able to trace causal connections anywhere; that even in the clearest case no possible analysis of one stage in the process enables us to prophesy, independently of experience, the next stage, also compels us to admit that the full cause is not really present in any of the finite manifestations we can follow; that we have always to take account of the "hidden efficacy of the Infinite everywhere at work," and so must recognize once again the indubitable immanence of God, the absolute dependence of the finite upon his will, and our reciprocal action as possible only through him.[22]

Or, to put the same thing a little differently, any adequate theory of causality seems to lead us up inevitably to purpose in God. As Professor Bowne states it:[23] "The fundamental antithesis of purpose and causation is incorrect. The true antithesis is that of mechanical and volitional causality." And he intimates the probability that all causality, even in the physical world, is ultimately volitional. "It becomes a question," he says, "whether true causality can be found in the phenomenal at all, and not rather in a power beyond the phenomenal which incessantly posits and continues that order according to rule." The unity and consistency of the immanent will of God, then, are the ultimate metaphysical ground of all reciprocal action. The mutual influence, that is, even of spirits, finds its final full explanation only in God.

The social consciousness, therefore, so far as it is an expression of the possibility and inevitableness of our mutual influence, is a reflection of the immanence of the one God in the unity and consistency of his life.

But this, after all, is not the most important element of the social consciousness. So far as it is ethical at all, it can have no final explanation in the metaphysical, considered as mere matter of fact. We are driven, therefore, to ask the second question involved in the subject of the chapter.

II. WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR THE FINAL POSITIVE JUSTIFICATION
OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS ETHICAL?

1. Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of God.—It is not enough that we should be able to think of the unity of One Life pervading all, or even of One Will upholding all. If the social consciousness, as distinctly ethical, is to have any final justification, it must be able to believe that it is in league with the eternal and universal forces; that the fundamental trend of the universe is its own trend; in other words, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical purpose conceivable only in a Person; that the ideals and purposes of finite beings expressed in the social consciousness are in line with God's own; that the loving holy purpose of the Infinite Will quickens and sustains and surrounds our purposes.

Let us distinctly face the fact that, unless the social consciousness can be so grounded in the very foundation of the universe, it must remain an illogical and unjustifiable fragment in the world, without real excuse for being. That is, if the social consciousness is not to be an illusion, it must be, as Professor Nash contends, cosmical, and not merely individual, and ethics must root in religion. This is the very heart of his stimulating book, Ethics and Revelation, expressed, for example, in such sentences as these: "Nothing save a sense of deep and intimate connection with the solid core of things, nothing save a settled and fervid conviction that the universe is on the side of the will in its struggle for that whole-hearted devotion for the welfare of the race, without which morality is an affair of shreds and patches, can give to the will the force and edge suitable to the difficult work it has to do. But this sense of kinship with what is deepest and most abiding in the universe—what else is meant by pure religion." And again: "We, as founders and builders of the true society, find ourselves shut up to an impassioned faith in the sincerity of the universe and the integrity of the fundamental being. Our religion is a deep and wide synthesis of feeling, whereby that personal will in us, which grounds society, comes into solemn league and covenant with the fundamental being. Here is the focus-point of the prophetic revelation. At this point, the deep in God answers to the deep in Man.... All that He is He puts in pledge for the perfecting of the society He has founded."[24]

Paulsen expresses only the same fundamental conviction, from the point of view of the philosopher, and, at the same time, the heart of his own solution of the relation between knowledge and faith, when he says: "There is one item, at least, in which every man goes beyond mere knowledge, beyond the registration of facts. That is his own life and his future. His life has a meaning for him, and he directs it toward something which does not yet exist, but which will exist by virtue of his will. Thus a faith springs up by the side of his knowledge. He believes in the realization of this, his life's aim, if he is at all in earnest about it. Since, however, his aim is not an isolated one, but is included in the historical life of a people, and finally in that of humanity, he believes also in the future of his people, in the victorious future of truth and righteousness and goodness in humanity. Whoever devotes his life to a cause believes in that cause, and this belief, be his creed what it may, has always something of the form of a religion. Hence faith infers that an inner connection exists between the real and the valuable within the domain of history, and believes that in history something like an immanent principle of reason or justice favors the right and the good, and leads it to victory over all resisting forces." And Paulsen holds that this implicit faith characterizes necessarily every philosophical theory. "What the philosopher himself accepts as the highest good and final goal he projects into the world as its good and goal, and then believes that subsequent reflections also reveal it to him in the world."[25] We must be able, then, to believe that the best we know—our highest ideals—are at home in the world, or give up all faith in the honesty of the world, and all hope of philosophy, to say nothing of religion. Ultimately, now, this means that nothing short of full Christian conviction is needed to support the social consciousness. We need to be able to believe that the spirit of the life and death of Christ is at the very heart of the world. Nothing less will suffice. And this is exactly the support which the Christian revelation offers to the social consciousness.

2. God's Sharing in Our Life.—But if the social consciousness is only a true reflection of God's own desire and purpose, then in a sense far deeper than the merely metaphysical, our life is the very life of God. He shares in it. And no man can really see what that means, and not find a new light falling on all the world, and himself carried on to take up a new confession of faith in the solemn words of another: "For the agony of the world's struggle is the very life of God. Were he mere spectator, perhaps, he too would call life cruel. But in the unity of our lives with his, our joy is his joy, our pain is his." And from the vision of this self-giving life of God we turn back to our own place of service, saying with Matheson: "If Thou art love then Thy best gift must be sacrifice; in that light let me search Thy world."[26]

We probably cannot better express this unity of our highest ethical life with the life of God than by renewing our old faith that we are children of a common Father, who have come, under God's own leading—so far as a social consciousness is ours—voluntarily to share in God's loving purpose in the creation and redemption of men. We do not work alone; nay, we are co-workers with God.

3. The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social Consciousness.—And as soon as we have thus really and deeply come into the meaning of Christ's thought of God as Father, and into his revelation in his life and death as to what the spirit of that Fatherhood is, we turn back to the elements of our social consciousness to find them all transfigured.

Our likeness is the likeness of common children of God reflecting the image of the one Father, capable of character and of indefinite progress into the highest. Our mutual influence roots in a real Fatherhood, both in source of being and in the one purpose of love, alike creating and redemptively working for all.

Our sense of the value and sacredness of the person now for the first time gets its full justification. Men are not only creatures capable of joying and suffering, but children of God with a preciousness to be interpreted only in the light of Christ, and with the "power of the endless life" upon them. Concerning the value of the person, it is worth stopping just here, to notice that it is peculiarly true of the social consciousness, that it is not free to ignore such considerations upon immortality as those which weighed most with John Stuart Mill and Sully. Of the hope of immortality, Mill says: "The beneficial influence of such a hope is far from trifling. It makes life and human nature a far greater thing to the feelings, and gives greater strength as well as greater solemnity to all the sentiments which are awakened in us by our fellow-creatures, and by mankind at large." And Sully adds: "I would only say that if men are to abandon all hope of a future life, the loss, in point of cheering and sustaining influence, will be a vast one, and one not to be made good, so far as I can see, by any new idea of services to collective humanity."[27]

Our sense of obligation deepens with all this deepening of the value of men, and our conscience becomes only a true response to God's own life and character—in no mere figurative sense the voice of God in us.

And our love becomes simply entering a little way into God's own love, a sharing more and more in his life.

And when one has once seen the social consciousness so transfigured in the light of Christ's revelation, he must believe that then, for the first time, he has seen the social consciousness at its highest, and that it is impossible for him to go back to the lower ideal. If the social consciousness is not an illusion, Christ's thought of God and of the life with God ought to be true; and if the world is an honest world, it is true. It is not only true that Christ has a social teaching, but that the social consciousness absolutely requires Christ's teaching for its own final justification. The Christian truth is so great that it alone can give the social consciousness its fullest meaning, alone can enable it to understand itself, and alone can give it adequate motive and power; for, in Keim's words, "to-day, to-morrow, and forever we can know nothing better than that God is our Father, and that the Father is the rest of our souls."[28]