Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/204

192 of the un-ideal, the abnormal, the sinful condition of mankind. In a word this may be described as one of unsocial relationships. The evil man is a dead limb, a lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son. It is a little remarkable that although the earliest Christian writings have much to say upon the universality of such a condition, Jesus is silent as regards universal sinfulness. With him it would appear as if sin were the reverse of sociability, and a sinful race, as distinct from sinful individuals, a contradiction of terms. In failing to follow the fundamental instincts and capacities of his nature, a man becomes at once selfish, sinful, and unsocial. His punishment is the outcome of his abused nature. Destined for companionship with high spiritual beings, he necessarily turns in upon himself, grows less and less capable of opening his nature to him who seeks his love. He loses those powers by which he might become a member of God's family and of the brotherhood of man. Exclusion from the kingdom is his natural punishment—he is not fit to be one of its members. In one case at least, Jesus states this cause explicitly. At the day of judgment the ground on which exclusion from the kingdom will be based is a failure to fulfil the social duties of the present age. Hell is thus at once the opposite and the horrible caricature of heaven. It is not merely an accommodation of his thought to Jewish terminology when Jesus describes the selfish rich man as suffering alone in Gehenna, and the poor man as in the companionship of Abraham. Translated into the language of today the principle this parable illustrates would not be altogether different from this: The degeneration of the social nature that arises from the neglect of social duties, unfits a man for, or participation in, the enjoyments of the ideal life. Selfishness—that is, an over-developed individualism—must according to the laws of nature result in abnormality and consequent suffering. As long as a kingdom and a brotherhood are the goal of human effort, so long must man be capable of social life, and sociability a characteristic element of a normal man.