Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/757

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 733

merce in favor of a treaty of arbitration and conciliation between Great Britain and France ? " Mr. Balfour replied that he had noted with much interest and sympathy these resolutions.

It is thus seen that it was the direct action of chambers of commerce which brought the two governments into contact, and thereby was done what the peace conference was unable to do ; what the czar, with all his influence, fell short of doing; what enthusiasts and idealists (God bless them!) have been trying to do for a hundred years or more ; and what might never have been done at all had not the practical business men of the two countries insisted upon doing it. That is what business men can do when they put their shoulders to the wheel, and I have shown how they can do it.

And now I hope the business men of the United States will join the business men of the United Kingdom and carry through a treaty between these two countries in the same way as the British and French business men did between their two countries. I believe nay, I know the Senate of the United States would be only too glad to feel that it had a warrant for giving priority on its already overcrowded business list to take up this subject as an urgent one. It is an urgent one. When two nations seem inclined to put their friendship into the form of a treaty, that is a subject which has priority over every other, because it involves the welfare for years to come of nations, which must pass before communities and individuals.

Moreover, I believe that such a treaty between Great Britain and the United States would have an effect on the future of mankind which no treaty between any other two civilized powers could ever aspire to produce. Yet the next treaty is likely to be between Great Britain and Italy in fact, I can say that it is practically settled at this moment. Why should our two go-ahead Anglo- Saxon nations leave it to others to show the way ? Why should we not, in one great overwhelming wave of public opinion, bring the matter to a head between these two nations, and with, not 200 or 300 resolutions, but with 2,000 or 3,000 resolutions, show the Senate that it is warranted in dealing with the matter forthwith ?

I am not quite sure thaa the business men of the United States are conscious of the immense power they can wield in the destinies of the world. They are doing already an immense amount of good work for this country ; but I think that if they step into the arena of competition for the consolidation, once and for all, of the peace of the world, they will do the work begun on the other side of the Atlantic with all the magnificent speed and effectiveness with which they do everything they undertake on this side. THOMAS BARCLAY, " Business Men and Peace : A New Force for International Arbitration," in Boston Transcript, December 19, 1903.

Ethics, a Science. The fundamental distinction between a science and an art is the distinction between knowing and doing. Art always connotes facile, correct performance. Where both a science and an art deal with a given range of phenomena, there is danger of confusion between them. Thus there is both a science and an art which is concerned with laws, with music, with architecture, with conduct. Thus at the start it is important to draw a sharp distinction between the science of ethics and the art of morality, or the practice of right conduct.

Another question arises : Is ethics a descriptive science, or merely a nor- mative science, as most writers on the subject have held? Ethics, like hygiene and jurisprudence, is normative in the sense that it is a science which deals descriptively with norms. As a science it is not imperative, but indicative, a statement of " the way things are." Of course, those items of a science which appeal to human desire and will get transferred into imperatives readily ; but in so far as the normative science itself lapses into the imperative mood, it ceases to be a science. Ethics then merely says : " There are various ways of behaving observable among men, and others conceivable. These various ways have these respective characteristics and consequences."