Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/259

 ETHICS AND ITS HISTORY 243

measure to reap the advantages of the peculiar labor of the social life, of the writing on the wall, of the microscopic exposure ; but and this brings us back to our special interest no profession, no social affiliation, has ever, in and of itself made a well- rounded experience, a unity of experience for any personal indi- vidual. The individual's profession is more safely viewed as his environment, or at least as a part, of course the less remote part, of his environment, with reference to which he has his truly personal experience. Thus, society may be divided professionally into honest men and thieves; and however dishonest the thieves may be professionally, it is proverbially true that personally honor dwells among thieves; and however honest the honest men may be professionally, it is true, though perhaps not pro- verbial, that thieving has as often used the laws as broken them. Think, too, of the intense party fealty among radicals, of the arbi- trariness of conservatism, of the current leisure of labor and the labor of capital, and you will get the meaning here. No profes- sion settles personal life one way or the other. No profession relieves the individual of that from which it seems itself to stand aloof. In short, all the differences and conflicts of life belong within the unity of experience, so that no mere class affiliation can ever solve any problem be it ethical, religious, political, or what you will in human experience.

Accordingly, the evidence of history, or of the social life at the present time, can really give no support to the objection that was raised. Conservatives and radicals, rigorists and hedonists, in human society only show the professional development of the ethical question as still a question. They emphasize, by their natural magnification, the demands that the conditions under which the question arises make upon the answer; they do not give an answer themselves. They only tempt the ethical inquirer to say again: "If you have nothing more to offer except a choice of two things, both of which I must have really to solve my difficulty, then I must simply thank you for telling me so well what my problem is, and look elsewhere for its answer."

Looking elsewhere for the answer, for that something con- crete which, by uniting both duty and pleasure, will be the