Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/532

 5 1 8 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOG \

because they are one's own, to become " an empty self-will and self-assurance, which, swollen with private sentiment or chance desire, wears a mask of goodness." ' This is why England, " the chosen land of moral philosophy, has the reputation abroad of being the chief home of hypocrisy and cant." *

The policy of meeting the rationalism that threatens to dis- solve one by one all faiths, obligations, and ideals by fairly out- bidding it with the Moral Reason, is well-nigh done for. Ration- alist ethics, unable to endure such sharp competition, is nearing bankruptcy. As the moralist delves deeper and deeper into the inner life to find a firm foundation for the summons to obedience, the skeptic follows and undermines him. The task of confound- ing the unjust man with reasons drawn from his own nature is futile. And even were it not, reasonableness is, after all, a tepid thing compared to patriotism or loyalty or love of a cause. The world hears the empty clatter about " realization of the rational self," and passes by on the other side.

If we read aright the last three decades, the inner voice has lost in clearness and authority. To the west European and the North American right no longer possesses the absoluteness of a graven law, but bends to circumstance, consequence, and feeling. National groups now claim what was meant for mankind. The ethics of the German is less universal since he has a country to love. In France the sentiment of patriotism proves far easier to foster than an exacting conscience. In England the " Noncon- formist Conscience " is in abeyance. For all the nations imper- ialism holds the baton. Under the tutelage of Darwinism the world returns again to the idea that might as evidence of fitness has something to do with right. And yet with this dwells a vastly richer set of sympathies and a far more haunting con- sciousness of the corporate self. Though inward reference is on the decline, the world is more peopled with that large-pon- dering type of soul that feels, judges, and chooses from the col- lective standpoint. An observer of seven centuries ago, tracing the evolution of the warrior up to the mail-clad knight with half a hundred-weight of metal on his body, would have felt justified

1 BRADLEY, Appearance and Reality, p. 436.