Page:Philosophical Review Volume 26.djvu/52

40 modern European peoples. We have also highly significant changes in mores taking place from year to year embodied in our law, our literature, our standards of living, and our methods of philanthropy, if we have eyes to see them, but the task of organizing and interpreting all these lines is an enormous one.

When such an interpretation of the moral is more adequately worked out, the contrast between origin and validity, which has been more or less in evidence through the period, will no longer be as simple as it appeared at first. Stated abstractly it is clear enough that the origin of an institution does not decide its validity. An enlightened conscience will not command me to knock my parent on the head because that was an earlier method of filial respect, nor will it on the contrary be decisive against communism that this once was prevalent but has since been abandoned. If the history of morals were simply a history of customs that have proved useful for survival or for 'progress' as measured by our present standing place, it would have even then a certain significance as the testing of standards by their consequences. But the customs, taboos, and ideals of mankind are more than accidental ways that proved successful. As men advance in intelligence their morals have an increasing element of controlling the situation and not simply of adaptation to it. They represent the development of new values and new standards for valuing. They show the self gradually gaining definition, power, and worth, as it controls nature and relates itself through language and art, through institutions and religion, to other persons. To enter into this process cannot fail to give some data for answering the present questions: What is my right relation to my fellows? What values of personality are greatest? An ideal which cuts itself off from all such sources will have to resort for its values to such meager conceptions as identity and consistency.

The developments noticed thus far have come chiefly as the result of the scientific conception of evolution. If, however, we ask what has affected most intensely the ethical thought of the