Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/460

442 The gap between theory and practice comes out also in the great reliance placed upon religious motives in the moral life. It is not necessary to enter into controversial questions here. The fact is enough that contemporary moralists, almost without exception and including all schools, hold that the reasons and duties of the moral life either lie within itself, or at least may be stated by themselves without direct reference to supernatural considerations. In running over the names of moral theorists of the present day, of all schools, I can think of but two exceptions to this statement. Sidgwick holds that it may be impossible to get a final statement of morals without postulating a supreme moral Being and Ruler, while Martineau holds that obligation is derived from such a Being. But even Martineau holds that the facts of obligation may be found directly in human nature; that it is only when we demand a philosophical explanation of its nature that we bring in the reference to God. Either, then, theory is working in a very unpractical direction, or else much of practice is going on in very anti-scientific fashion. A readjustment is demanded.

This brings me to my final point. An influential movement of the present times (I refer to the ethical culture movement) holds, as I understand it, that it is possible to separate the whole matter of the moral education of children and adults from theoretical considerations. With their contention that education can be (must be, I should say) separated from dogmatic theories I am heartily at one; but as, after all, a dogmatic theory is a contradiction in terms, the question is, whether such an emancipation can be effected without a positive theory of the moral life. It is a critical and practical question with every teacher and parent: What reasons shall I present to my child for doing this right act? What motives in him shall I appeal to in order that he may realize for himself that it is right? What interests in him shall I endeavor to evoke in order to create an habitual disposition in this right direction? I fail utterly to see how these questions can be even approximately answered without some sort of a working theory. To give a reason to a child, to suggest to him a motive—I care not what—for doing the right thing, is to have and use a moral theory. To point out its consequences to himself in the ways of pains and pleasures; to point out its reaction into his own habits and character; to show him how it affects the welfare of others; to point out what strained and abnormal relations it sets up between him and others, and the reaction of these relations upon his own happiness and future actions—to point to any of these things with a view to instilling moral judgment and disposition is to appeal to a theory of the moral life. To suppose that the appeal to do a thing simply because it is right does not involve such a theory; to suppose that the practical value of this