Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/698

 682 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

a treatise on algebra in which arithmetic should have no place. The two are inseparable. The simplest definition of ethics is: a consideration of the way in which the individual reacts upon his social surroundings. Every individual finds existing around him a social standard, which he may either fall short of ; or with which he may accurately comply; or which, finally, he may surpass. In the first case, he is regarded as an average man, with neither blame nor praise; in the second, he incurs blame; and in the third, he will, ultimately, be regarded with praise. Ethics, therefore, presupposes a social organism by and through which the individual lives and grows ; on which he acts, or may act, beneficially, adding something that was not there before. He has a certain margin of free action upon that society. This is true whatever type of social life we may choose to consider. Suppose a savage in the most primitive condi- tion ; or suppose, in the second place, an inhabitant of a mediaeval town, with a city to defend, with a guild to stand by, and a church to which he owes obedience ; or suppose, in the third place, a member of an ideal republic, such as we may picture to ourselves as existing in the future, living in the time when the world will have peace. In all these three cases the standard of ethics is widely different. In each there are definite rules of life; and in each there is a free margin of action, the domain of free human conduct, the domain of character. Ethics therefore presupposes sociology. Side by side with the judgment of conduct must go judgment of the social organism in which con- duct takes place. There is a correspondence, though not always easy to dis- entangle, between the ethical system and the social system. The ethical system of primitive man corresponds in its larger features with the system of tribal organization. The ethical system of fully developed man, as we picture him to ourselves in the future, implies membership of a family, implies a com- munity of families forming a nation, implies a community of nations holding peaceful intercourse under the supreme community of a progressive humanity. We best see the connection between ethics and sociology by taking imperfect types of sociology, and all types hitherto have been obviously imperfect. So long as humanity is divided against itself, we have two systems of contradictory ethics ethics (to use Mr. Spencer's language) of enmity, and the ethics of amity. From the times of the Stoics and the early Christians that is, for two thousand years we have had these two standards of right and wrong before us. " Thou shalt hate thine enemy ; " " Thou shalt love thine enemy " these are the two codes : the Sermon on the Mount, and the code taught to all our schoolboys at public schools and advocated in most of our newspapers.

leading events of the day a sort of higher journalism. His advocacy of justice economic, political, and social has been one of the progressive forces in English public life. It will be seen that Dr. Bridges combines in his personality something of the qualities both of Whewell and of Newman, as may be observed in his numerous contributions to that very remarkable production of the English Positivist group, The New Calendar of Great Men. He has edited an edition of Roger Bacon's works, which for the first time presents them in their i>i..|>< r totality.