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 CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY 277

3. It goes without saying that Jesus does not base his hopes of a new society upon an "enlightened self-interest," or any other hedonist philosophy. That the individual would seek his own good he seems to have assumed. 1 That this in any way needed excuse, or that it was necessary to raise this natural impulse into a philosophy and reduce all social service to terms of a whitewashed selfishness seems never to have occurred to him. No man ever struck out more manfully against both self-depre- ciation and selfishness than Jesus, but the motive upon which he expected men to act was not that of the improvement of the individual atom. Self-preservation may be the final motive of physical nature, but not with the followers of Jesus. "Whoso- ever will save his life shall lose it. 2

Taken altogether, it is obvious that the forces upon which Jesus relied to make his ideal society an actual fact in life, were neither mechanical nor selfish. Whatever approach society as he found it was to make towards that better order which he described would not be the result of external propulsion nor of calculation. As the kingdom of God was spiritual, so are the forces which bring about its realization ; and as it is a family, so are its members to be not self-seekers but brothers.

II.

If, now, we attempt more positively to set forth those pri- mary forces upon which Jesus counted for the accomplishment of his ideals, we are forced back upon his fundamental concep- tion of the nature of man. Jesus trusts the inherent powers and capacities of the race. The ideal he portrays was not intended for creatures less or more human than the men with whom he associated and out of whom he hoped to form his kingdom. Individual and social regeneration is possible because man and society are inherently salvable. And deep in the heart of

'Matt. 7:12; Luke 6: 31. In his promises of rewards the position of Jesus is similar. And in addition it will be noticed that these rewards are gained at the cost of sacrifice.

Matt. 16:25.