Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/755

Rh and powerful, communicates something of its qualities to the other. In man's progress in culture of soul there is no part of his nature that does not affect and is not affected by all other parts.

Let us pass on to the details of man's ethical codes. It is generally agreed that the great mass of these spring from the experiences of human intercourse. The ordinary moral rules of life have arisen from men's observation that without them society is not possible. Such is the origin of the feeling against theft, murder, and falsehood. The family life is dependent on the subordination of children to parents, and the tribal or national life on the obedience of subjects to rulers. The early particular perceptions of the law of kindness arise from a compromise between the instincts of self-development and sympathy. A man helps his fellow-man, but not more than is consistent with the maintenance of his own interest. There are special instincts, like that of maternal love, which carry with them absolute self-abnegation. In process of time moral principles acquire a certain universality, and are embodied in ideal forms of men or gods, and these ideals and principles assume an independent shape and enter as independent forces into moral life. Even the broadest and most unselfish ethical conceptions and usages of our best developed societies are thus to be traced back to the habits of thought which arise from social intercourse.

The results of the ethical thought of society are adopted by religion. Observation, as is remarked above, teaches that so soon as the constitution of the community becomes distinctly moral, its religion assumes the same tone—the content of the divine character becomes moral, and the deity is conceived to be pleased by conduct which is in accord with his character. It need not be thought derogatory to religion that it should depend on the experiences of human society for its moral teachings. The essence of religion is not the content of the divine personality, but man's desire to put himself in sympathy with the divine. The ethical character with which man enters into relation is, of course, of extreme importance; but the human mind can not truly appropriate thoughts which it has not learned by experience, and no divine ideal would be effective which had not previously been wrought out by the mind itself.

Such an ideal may exert a powerful influence on life, but only on condition that it correspond with ethical conceptions held by the community in which it exists. If there is a conflict between these two standards, there is in most cases no doubt as to which of them will determine conduct: men will follow their own convictions, preserving a respectful attitude toward the divine, but ignoring its guidance in this point. Illustrations of this fact are