The social institutions, the family, the organs of education, the vocation3, the political organization, the organization of mankind, the ideal religious society are to be treated as a progressive series. The individual is to pass successively through them, advancing from station to station toward ethical4 personality.
In designating the social institutions as an ethical series, care must be taken not to confound the terms of the series as now existent with the terms as they would be did they conform to their ethical functions. For instance, even the monogamic family is as yet only in part ethically5 organized. School and university are adrift as to their ethical purpose. The majority of mankind are engaged in occupations which it would be absurd to call vocations6, and the international group exists as yet barely in embryo7. Hence when we speak of the social institutions as a progressive series through which the individual is to advance towards personality, we are describing the aim of social reconstruction8, not the present state of things. The spiritual nature of man must create for itself appropriate social organs. It has been painfully engaged in the attempt to do so since the existence of our race on earth.
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In each of the social institutions we are to distinguish between the empirical substratum and the spiritual imprint10 which it is to receive. We find in each ready to hand some natural non-moral motive11 or set of motives12 of which we are to avail ourselves in the endeavor to evoke13 the spiritual result. Thus in the family the non-moral motive is affection due to consanguinity14; in the school sociality, the school society being the first society into which the child enters; in the vocation there is the craving15 for mental self-expression, in the state, patriotism16, or the feeling we have for the larger whole in which we are included on the basis of similarity of language, historic tradition, etc. The natural basis of the international group of society is the empirical, and as yet in no way ethical, fact of the commercial and industrial interdependence of the different countries, a fact used by M. Bloch and his more recent followers17 as an argument against war.
In popular literature the empirical substratum and the spiritual relation to be produced by means of it are constantly confused. In any genuinely ethical system they must be carefully discriminated18.69
In each of the social institutions, or, as we may now call them, the phases of life experience through which the individual must pass on the way toward personality, the winning of the ethical result depends on observance of the three-fold reverence. What I mean by the three-fold reverence must be explained in some detail, es243pecially as the reader might otherwise be led into identifying my view with that expressed by Goethe in Wilhelm Meister. The three modes of reverence mentioned by Goethe in his sketch19 of the “pedagogical province” have for their background the poet’s pantheism. The view here set forth20 is based on ethical idealism.
In order to introduce my thought let me go back to the phrase repeatedly used in Book III—“the task of humanity.” Mankind as a whole, the generations past, present and to come, have a certain work to do, a task to accomplish. A collective obligation rests on our race, spanning the generations.
The spiritual conception of the collective task is the basis of the three-fold reverence. The spiritual result, as was said above, is in every instance to be superinduced upon an empirical substratum. The empirical substratum in this case is mankind considered as a developing entity21, which partially22 reproduces in the present the mental and moral acquisitions of ancestors, partially increases the heritage and passes it on to the newcomers. I, as an individual, am also inextricably linked up backward and forward with those who come before and those who are to come after. I cannot take myself out of this web. The task laid upon human society as a whole is also laid upon me. I am a conscious thread in the fabric23 that is weaving, conscious in a general way of the pattern to be woven.
But viewed empirically the development of humanity is haphazard24. Much is preserved from the past that ought to be cast aside. Many traces of past error remain unexpunged in the life of the present. A mixed stream,244 compounded of good and evil, passes through our veins25 into our successors’. The empirical fact is simply the fact of partial reproduction, partial augmentation and partial transmission. The ethical conception of progress depends on the view that there is an ideal pattern of the spiritual relation in the mind of man, destined26 to become more explicit27 as it is tested out and that the present generation ought to appraise28 the heritage of the past according to this pattern, preserving and rejecting and adding its own quota29 in such a way as to enable the succeeding generations to sift30 the worthful from the worthless more successfully, and to see the ideal pattern more explicitly31.
The three-fold reverence has been described as reverence towards superiors, equals and inferiors. For this inadequate32 description I would substitute the following: In place of reverence towards superiors, reverence for the valid33 work of ethicizing human relations already accomplished34 in the past, reverence for the precious permanent achievements and for those who achieved them,—the “Old Masters.” The human race has gained a certain ethical footing in the empirical sphere. The general task has not to be begun ab initio. In the act of separating what is worth while from what is worthless, in the very process of revision and reinterpretation35, we manifest our reverence for the past. It is thus that true historicity is distinguished37 from blind conservatism. And besides, by studying the old masters, we acquire a certain standard of excellence38. Since those who have contributed epoch-making advances in philosophy, in religion, in science, inspire us by the grandeur245 of their attack on the great problems; and the spirit of their attack, is unspeakably stimulating39 to us, even when we reject their solutions. We cannot too humbly40 sit as disciples41 at the feet of the great masters if discipleship42 has this meaning.
Reverence of the first type prescribes the same attitude towards pre?minent personalities43 among our contemporaries. They rank with the great predecessors44 inasmuch as they are in a way for us predecessors. They are in advance of us. To revere1 them is to endeavor to come abreast45 of them, to obtain the advantage of the forward movement which their superior capacity enabled them to initiate46, and to start where they leave off, adding our small quota.
The second kind of reverence is directed toward those who are, in respect to their gifts and opportunities, approximately on the same level with us, but whose gifts differ from and are supplementary47 to ours. In our relation to them we may learn the great lesson of appreciating unlikeness, and working out our own correlative unlikeness by way of reaction.
The third kind of reverence is directed toward the undeveloped, among whom I include the young, the backward groups among civilized48 peoples, and the uncivilized peoples. We are to reverence that which is potential in all of these individuals and groups, and we do so by fitting ourselves to help them actualize their spiritual possibilities. Reverence of the third kind takes the highest rank among the three. The spiritual life of the world is a deep mine as yet explored only near the surface. The unrealized possibilities of mankind are the chief asset.246 But in order to effectuate our purpose with respect to the undeveloped, we must have reverence toward the great Old Masters, to gain a certain standard of excellence; and reverence towards unlikeness in others to become ourselves differentiated49 individualities, and in order to respect the unlikeness which we shall presently likewise find in the backward and the young. So that the three reverences50 play into one another and are inseparable from one another, the first two being indispensable to the third. They are in truth a “trinity in unity51.” But the third reverence is the supreme52 one. The chief objective must be the undeveloped, because our face must be turned toward the future, because the task of mankind is as yet in its early stages. The third reverence is supreme. Now it is only when we have grasped the meaning of the triple reverence that we can fully9 appreciate the significance of the family as the first matrix in which the reverential attitudes are to be acquired. It is only then that we can rightly conceive of the organs of education, and of the end upon which the activities of school and university should converge53. And similarly we shall find our interpretation36 of the vocation, the state, and the international society illuminated54 by this conception of the three-fold reverence.
In popular religious teaching the individual is thrust into the foreground. His salvation55 as a detached entity is the principal object. In positivism and evolutionalism society in its empirical aspect is exalted56, and the individual tends to be regarded as a stepping-stone. In the spiritual interpretation of the collective task as outlined, the individual remains57 integral and sacrosanct58. The247 spiritual society of which the image is to be imprinted59 on human society is a society of indefeasible ethical personalities.70 The individual even now at his station in the present attributes to himself this lofty character and the various obligations which he already recognizes, and which he endeavors to fulfil, afford him ample opportunity to vindicate60 his spiritual selfhood. If in addition he looks forward longingly61 to the future, and to the greater spiritual fulfilment that may be expected among posterity62, this expectation is founded on the belief that what he already possesses in germ will then be more unfolded, that the ideal of the indefeasible worth of man of which he is already conscious in himself will then be more completely recognized and its infinite implications be more fully understood.71
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1
revere
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| vt.尊崇，崇敬，敬畏 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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vocation
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| n.职业，行业 | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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ethically
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| adv.在伦理上，道德上 | |
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vocations
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| n.（认为特别适合自己的）职业( vocation的名词复数 )；使命；神召；（认为某种工作或生活方式特别适合自己的）信心 | |
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embryo
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| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
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reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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imprint
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| n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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consanguinity
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| n.血缘；亲族 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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discriminated
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| 分别，辨别，区分( discriminate的过去式和过去分词 )； 歧视，有差别地对待 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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entity
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| n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物 | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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appraise
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| v.估价，评价，鉴定 | |
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quota
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| n.（生产、进出口等的）配额，（移民的）限额 | |
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sift
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| v.筛撒，纷落，详察 | |
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explicitly
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| ad.明确地，显然地 | |
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inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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reinterpretation
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| n.重新解释，纠正性说明 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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disciples
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| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
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discipleship
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| n.做弟子的身份（期间） | |
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personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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44
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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initiate
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| vt.开始，创始，发动；启蒙，使入门；引入 | |
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supplementary
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| adj.补充的，附加的 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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differentiated
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| 区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征 | |
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reverences
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| n.尊敬，崇敬( reverence的名词复数 )；敬礼 | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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converge
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| vi.会合；聚集，集中；(思想、观点等)趋近 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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sacrosanct
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| adj.神圣不可侵犯的 | |
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imprinted
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| v.盖印（imprint的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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vindicate
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| v.为…辩护或辩解，辩明；证明…正确 | |
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longingly
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| adv. 渴望地 热望地 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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