Certain forms of personal righteousness have become to a majority of the community almost automatic. It is as easy for most of us to keep from stealing our dinners as it is to digest them, and there is quite as much voluntary morality involved in one process as in the other. To steal would be for us to fall sadly below the standard of habit and expectation which makes virtue2 easy. In the same way we have been carefully reared to a sense of family obligation, to be kindly3 and considerate to the members of our own households, and to feel responsible for their well-being4. As the rules of conduct have become established in regard to our self-development and our families, so they have been in regard to limited circles of friends. If the fulfilment of these claims were all that a righteous life required, the hunger and thirst would be stilled for many good men and women, and the clew of right living would lie easily in their hands.
But we all know that each generation has its own test, the contemporaneous and current standard by which alone it can adequately judge of its own moral achievements, and that it may not legitimately5 use a previous and less vigorous test. The advanced test must indeed include that which has already been attained6; but if it includes no more, we shall fail to go forward, thinking complacently8 that we have "arrived" when in reality we have not yet started.
To attain7 individual morality in an age demanding social morality, to pride one's self on the results of personal effort when the time demands social adjustment, is utterly9 to fail to apprehend10 the situation.
It is perhaps significant that a German critic has of late reminded us that the one test which the most authoritative11 and dramatic portrayal12 of the Day of Judgment13 offers, is the social test. The stern questions are not in regard to personal and family relations, but did ye visit the poor, the criminal, the sick, and did ye feed the hungry?
All about us are men and women who have become unhappy in regard to their attitude toward the social order itself; toward the dreary14 round of uninteresting work, the pleasures narrowed down to those of appetite, the declining consciousness of brain power, and the lack of mental food which characterizes the lot of the large proportion of their fellow-citizens. These men and women have caught a moral challenge raised by the exigencies15 of contemporaneous life; some are bewildered, others who are denied the relief which sturdy action brings are even seeking an escape, but all are increasingly anxious concerning their actual relations to the basic organization of society.
The test which they would apply to their conduct is a social test. They fail to be content with the fulfilment of their family and personal obligations, and find themselves striving to respond to a new demand involving a social obligation; they have become conscious of another requirement, and the contribution they would make is toward a code of social ethics. The conception of life which they hold has not yet expressed itself in social changes or legal enactment16, but rather in a mental attitude of maladjustment, and in a sense of divergence17 between their consciences and their conduct. They desire both a clearer definition of the code of morality adapted to present day demands and a part in its fulfilment, both a creed18 and a practice of social morality. In the perplexity of this intricate situation at least one thing is becoming clear: if the latter day moral ideal is in reality that of a social morality, it is inevitable19 that those who desire it must be brought in contact with the moral experiences of the many in order to procure20 an adequate social motive21.
These men and women have realized this and have disclosed the fact in their eagerness for a wider acquaintance with and participation22 in the life about them. They believe that experience gives the easy and trustworthy impulse toward right action in the broad as well as in the narrow relations. We may indeed imagine many of them saying: "Cast our experiences in a larger mould if our lives are to be animated23 by the larger social aims. We have met the obligations of our family life, not because we had made resolutions to that end, but spontaneously, because of a common fund of memories and affections, from which the obligation naturally develops, and we see no other way in which to prepare ourselves for the larger social duties." Such a demand is reasonable, for by our daily experience we have discovered that we cannot mechanically hold up a moral standard, then jump at it in rare moments of exhilaration when we have the strength for it, but that even as the ideal itself must be a rational development of life, so the strength to attain it must be secured from interest in life itself. We slowly learn that life consists of processes as well as results, and that failure may come quite as easily from ignoring the adequacy of one's method as from selfish or ignoble24 aims. We are thus brought to a conception of Democracy not merely as a sentiment which desires the well-being of all men, nor yet as a creed which believes in the essential dignity and equality of all men, but as that which affords a rule of living as well as a test of faith.
We are learning that a standard of social ethics is not attained by travelling a sequestered25 byway, but by mixing on the thronged26 and common road where all must turn out for one another, and at least see the size of one another's burdens. To follow the path of social morality results perforce in the temper if not the practice of the democratic spirit, for it implies that diversified27 human experience and resultant sympathy which are the foundation and guarantee of Democracy.
There are many indications that this conception of Democracy is growing among us. We have come to have an enormous interest in human life as such, accompanied by confidence in its essential soundness. We do not believe that genuine experience can lead us astray any more than scientific data can.
We realize, too, that social perspective and sanity28 of judgment come only from contact with social experience; that such contact is the surest corrective of opinions concerning the social order, and concerning efforts, however humble29, for its improvement. Indeed, it is a consciousness of the illuminating30 and dynamic value of this wider and more thorough human experience which explains in no small degree that new curiosity regarding human life which has more of a moral basis than an intellectual one.
The newspapers, in a frank reflection of popular demand, exhibit an omniverous curiosity equally insistent31 upon the trivial and the important. They are perhaps the most obvious manifestations32 of that desire to know, that "What is this?" and "Why do you do that?" of the child. The first dawn of the social consciousness takes this form, as the dawning intelligence of the child takes the form of constant question and insatiate curiosity.
Literature, too, portrays33 an equally absorbing though better adjusted desire to know all kinds of life. The popular books are the novels, dealing34 with life under all possible conditions, and they are widely read not only because they are entertaining, but also because they in a measure satisfy an unformulated belief that to see farther, to know all sorts of men, in an indefinite way, is a preparation for better social adjustment—for the remedying of social ills.
Doubtless one under the conviction of sin in regard to social ills finds a vague consolation35 in reading about the lives of the poor, and derives36 a sense of complicity in doing good. He likes to feel that he knows about social wrongs even if he does not remedy them, and in a very genuine sense there is a foundation for this belief.
Partly through this wide reading of human life, we find in ourselves a new affinity37 for all men, which probably never existed in the world before. Evil itself does not shock us as it once did, and we count only that man merciful in whom we recognize an understanding of the criminal. We have learned as common knowledge that much of the insensibility and hardness of the world is due to the lack of imagination which prevents a realization38 of the experiences of other people. Already there is a conviction that we are under a moral obligation in choosing our experiences, since the result of those experiences must ultimately determine our understanding of life. We know instinctively39 that if we grow contemptuous of our fellows, and consciously limit our intercourse40 to certain kinds of people whom we have previously41 decided42 to respect, we not only tremendously circumscribe43 our range of life, but limit the scope of our ethics.
We can recall among the selfish people of our acquaintance at least one common characteristic,—the conviction that they are different from other men and women, that they need peculiar44 consideration because they are more sensitive or more refined. Such people "refuse to be bound by any relation save the personally luxurious45 ones of love and admiration46, or the identity of political opinion, or religious creed." We have learned to recognize them as selfish, although we blame them not for the will which chooses to be selfish, but for a narrowness of interest which deliberately47 selects its experience within a limited sphere, and we say that they illustrate48 the danger of concentrating the mind on narrow and unprogressive issues.
We know, at last, that we can only discover truth by a rational and democratic interest in life, and to give truth complete social expression is the endeavor upon which we are entering. Thus the identification with the common lot which is the essential idea of Democracy becomes the source and expression of social ethics. It is as though we thirsted to drink at the great wells of human experience, because we knew that a daintier or less potent49 draught50 would not carry us to the end of the journey, going forward as we must in the heat and jostle of the crowd.
The six following chapters are studies of various types and groups who are being impelled51 by the newer conception of Democracy to an acceptance of social obligations involving in each instance a new line of conduct. No attempt is made to reach a conclusion, nor to offer advice beyond the assumption that the cure for the ills of Democracy is more Democracy, but the quite unlooked-for result of the studies would seem to indicate that while the strain and perplexity of the situation is felt most keenly by the educated and self-conscious members of the community, the tentative and actual attempts at adjustment are largely coming through those who are simpler and less analytical52.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
ethics
|
|
| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
well-being
|
|
| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
legitimately
|
|
| ad.合法地；正当地，合理地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
complacently
|
|
| adv. 满足地, 自满地, 沾沾自喜地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
apprehend
|
|
| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
authoritative
|
|
| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
portrayal
|
|
| n.饰演；描画 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
exigencies
|
|
| n.急切需要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
enactment
|
|
| n.演出，担任…角色；制订，通过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
divergence
|
|
| n.分歧，岔开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
creed
|
|
| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
procure
|
|
| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
motive
|
|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
participation
|
|
| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
animated
|
|
| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
ignoble
|
|
| adj.不光彩的，卑鄙的；可耻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
sequestered
|
|
| adj.扣押的；隐退的；幽静的；偏僻的v.使隔绝，使隔离( sequester的过去式和过去分词 )；扣押 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
thronged
|
|
| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
diversified
|
|
| adj.多样化的，多种经营的v.使多样化，多样化( diversify的过去式和过去分词 )；进入新的商业领域 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
sanity
|
|
| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
illuminating
|
|
| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
insistent
|
|
| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
manifestations
|
|
| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
portrays
|
|
| v.画像( portray的第三人称单数 )；描述；描绘；描画 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
dealing
|
|
| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
consolation
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
derives
|
|
| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
affinity
|
|
| n.亲和力，密切关系 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
realization
|
|
| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
instinctively
|
|
| adv.本能地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
intercourse
|
|
| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
previously
|
|
| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
circumscribe
|
|
| v.在...周围划线，限制，约束 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
luxurious
|
|
| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
illustrate
|
|
| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
potent
|
|
| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
draught
|
|
| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
impelled
|
|
| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
analytical
|
|
| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |