Page:The War and the Churches.djvu/119

 The solution of this apparent problem is really not obscure. If the genuine basis of human conduct needed an elaborate search—if it had to be revealed by a Deity or laboriously established by moral theologians or moral philosophers—no doubt the age of transition would be an age of disorder, and a very comprehensive educational organisation would be needed. But the true basis of human conduct is simple. There are, of course, Rationalists who feel that some very abstruse "science of ethics" has to be constructed as the solid foundation of conduct; but this has as little relation to the conduct of ordinary men as the learned pedants of the science of prosody have to ordinary speakers of prose. Experience is the real base and guide of conduct, and it forces itself on every man and woman, even on the child. "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you" is the first principle of morals; and to inculcate it you need neither the thunders of Jupiter nor the impressive abstractions of a science of ethics: nor do you need any moral genius or philosophical skill to discover it. It is a rule of life that suggests itself spontaneously. It is a natural and prompt expression of the fact that our life is social: our acts have the closest relation to others besides ourselves. Now and again, perhaps, a man is tempted to assert his own personality, or seek his own gratification, in such a way as to ignore his fellows; but he is usually arrested before long by the simple experience that he himself suffers from the actions of others just as they may suffer from his conduct. It is a lesson of life which one needs no power of analysis to learn.

And the chief reason why the abandonment of the old doctrines is proceeding without any moral