character and of gracious personal influences, whose presence will be the prime factor in their culture of child character. To get them we must make the position more dignified and honorable, and, as such, more remunerative. The most important of society's functions must have the social status and the pecuniary rewards corresponding to the high worth of the teacher's service. For all this work of moral education, the first step forward is the securing of a proper preparation for the specialty of character-culture in our Normal Schools. We must educate our educators. R. HEBER NEWTON.

REV. DR. PATTON.

THE practical question whether the teaching of morality in the public schools should be grounded in religion is very closely related to the philosophical question whether morality is itself grounded in religion. For, if religion conditions morality as we believe it does, alike as to its origin, authoritativeness, perpetuity, and content, this is a very strong reason why religion should enter prominently into ethical instruction.

What is morality? This is an important question, though some who ask "Why must I be moral?" do not think it necessary to say what they mean by being moral. It is generally assumed that morality is identical with that system of regulated conduct which prevails among people who regard the decalogue as the law of God. And when the decalogue is so regarded there is propriety, of course, in identifying morality with its teachings; but the case is altogether different when, instead of being considered as the divine norm of conduct, it is looked upon as simply the formulated expression of human experience. What conduct is entitled to be considered as moral? It may be felicific conduct; if so, the law which enunciates it, instead of being couched in categorical terms, will always begin with an "if,” and address itself to men by saying, "This is what you must do 'if' you wish to be happy or promote the happiness of others.' Between the old doctrine of the categorical imperative, which says "Thou shalt," and the doctrine of egoistic Hedonism, also old, which says "This is the best in the long run," no successful compromise has as yet been effected, though several attempts at it have been made. Of these none is more worthy

of notice than that which is now being made under the auspices of the philosophy of evolution. Interpreting morality according to Leslie Stephen's exposition of it, we must suppose it to mean the system of regulated relations subsisting between the individuals who constitute what he calls the "social tissue." Moral conduct, according to this view, is therefore customary conduct. Customary conduct represents the conduct that promotes the life and health of the social organisms. So that the ethic of evolution has no categorical, but only a hypothetical imperative. It has no fixed standard. It uses the expression "moral law," but by this it means a generalization stating what the conduct of the organism approximately is, and not a command affirming what the conduct of the individual ought to be. This, however, is not the true meaning of morality. Moral conduct is obligatory conduct; it is conduct that a man ought to exhibit. So regarded, it is necessarily related to a standard of behavior, and the standard must be the antecedent of the behavior it is supposed to control. To take this position is to affirm an intuitional, and by necessary consequence a theological morality. For the meaning of "ought" is plain, simple, and underived. It cannot be twisted or changed into anything else. It cannot be generated out of anything else. The expedient is not the obligatory. "Better not" will never grow up into "ought not." The old utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill failed to explain obligation; the new utilitarianism of Spencer and Stephen has had no better

success.

Religion conditions morality as to origin. It also conditions it as to authoritativeness. Without a religious basis morality can have no authoritative basis. To this it may be objected that the feeling of obligation exists whatever its genesis may have been, and that being in existence, it must be operative while it lasts. But it is more than doubtful whether the authoritativeness of morality is sufficiently conserved by the bare fact that the feeling of obligation exists. For if there is no good reason for the feeling, the operative force of the feeling will be greatly abated. As long, of course, as a man feels that he ought, he will have an obligatory morality; but whether a man can feel that he ought, after he feels that the feeling need not be attended to, is another matter. Why should I be moral? Why should decalogue-morality be my morality? And, above all, why should I feel any sense of obligatoriness about it? Aside

from supernaturalism there is no satisfactory answer to these questions. The Hedonist may say, "This is the way to act if you wish to be happy"; but he would be met with the reply, "Happiness, that is to say, my happiness, is my affair. I may have another idea of what constitutes happiness, or I may be willing to do without happiness altogether, and at all events it contributes to my happiness for the present to be my own judge of what will be conducive to my happiness in the long run.” Again, the utilitarian may say, "This mode of acting will secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number," but the obvious reply to this would be that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is a problem that transcends human arithmetic, and that practically the happiness of the individual is the most sensible thing to think of, unless there be reasons against it better than those which utilitarianism has hitherto advanced. And once more the evolutionist will say, "This the way that you and all men must act if you care for the life, health, and happiness of the social organism." But to this it will be also replied that evolution does not furnish any means of determining what is best for the health of the organism; and that if it did, appeals in behalf of "social tissue" would have very little effect. Evolution must preach personal immortality if it is to secure sympathy for the immortality of society. If there is no life beyond this world for the individual, it matters very little how long there will be a life in this world for the organism. Morality will have fallen upon dark days when the pulpits preach virtue only for the sake of perpetuating society and promoting vigorous digestion in the members who compose it; for following the loss of an authoritative morality will sooner or later come the loss of morality itself.

Of course it is not contended that a general acceptance of empirical ethics would be followed immediately by a repudiation of all moral distinctions. Some account must be made of heredity. There is a certain ethical spontaneity, however it came into exercise, which would not immediately disappear after the ethics of evolution had been accepted. As long as men have their natural instincts, they will go on eating and drinking and caring for life, even though they may adopt a pessimistic theory of existence; and as long as men continue in possession of the ethical instincts which ordinarily influence them, they will exhibit a morality corresponding in a greater or less degree to

the requirements of the decalogue. Moreover, as long as public sentiment demands the practice of morality, we may expect the love of approval so natural to men to act as a barrier against vice. Then, too, the average morality called for by public sentiment will be reflected in legislation, and the sanction of law will save society from some of the more flagrant sins. And once more, though a man's selfishness may incline him to violate ethical propriety, that same selfishness may make him eager to punish such violations on the part of others. Self-interest will secure, for a time at least, the enforcement of laws that protect the fireside. Yet it needs no reasoning to show the insecurity of that morality, which is menaced by inclination, is reinforced by no sense of obligation, is looked upon as social conventionalism, and is kept within the trammels of law by a suspicious selfishness which makes every man distrust his neighbor and perform police duty in watching his behavior. We may concede that public sentiment will exercise a restraining influence after a sense of personal obligation has been lost; but the question is, how long this public sentiment will survive the destruction of the conscience. The conscience of the community cannot be more sensitive than the conscience of the individuals composing it, and when the conscience of the individual ceases to feel obligation, the conscience of the community will sooner or later cease to enforce obligation. We need not look for the inclination to be moral after we have given up the obligation to be moral; and evil inclination will not always be kept in check by the veto of society after it has ceased to fear the veto of the individual conscience. The moral sentiment which constitutes such an important part of our civilization is a religious sentiment. It backs the immutable distinctions of right and wrong by the stern sanction of the law of God. It has been generated through a long discipline, and though it will undoubtedly bear many shocks, it is too much to suppose that it could enter hopefully into the struggle against selfish appetites and desires, after the great principles which lie at its foundation and are the secret of its development had been discarded.

When we speak of the moral sentiment of our civilization, we mean, of course, Christian civilization; for while it is true that all authoritative morality implies belief in God, it is also true that the contents of our accepted morality are historically associ

ated with the particular beliefs regarding God which are taught in the Bible. We cannot drop supernaturalism out of Biblemorality without sacrificing the authoritative value of that morality; for if that morality has only historic value, why am I bound to comply with it? Why should Christ's law regarding monogamy and divorce, why should his injunctions regarding love and forgiveness, influence men authoritatively if he has no exceptional place in history entitling him to speak authoritatively in declaration of God's will? Yet, it is substantially Christian morality, for which the advocates of a secular morality contend. Their problem is: How can we sever theology from ethics? How can we perpetuate as the practical guide of life a morality which is rooted in convictions of moral obligation, and which has been historically unfolded in Christianity, after the idea of moral obligation has been discarded, and Christianity has been accounted for under the rubrics of naturalistic evolution? These questions have no answer, and the attempt to find a new and non-religious foundation for morality must result in failure.

If we are right in holding that morality is grounded in relig ion, we need not ask whether the religious aspect of morality should have any place in ethical instruction, for a very important element in that instruction consists in stating the grounds of moral obligation. If the teaching of an exclusively secular morality were advocated only by those who hold that morality sustains no necessary relation to religion, we should not be required to say more than has been already said in support of the position advocated in this article. But the teaching of morality on non-religious grounds is sometimes advocated by those who are in full sympathy with the opinions here advanced, regarding the basis of moral obligation and the debt which ethics owes to Christianity. To teach the religious side of ethics in any degree is by some regarded as contrary to the American doctrine of the separation of Church and State, or as a tyrannical violation of the rights of conscience. We fail to see any force in either of these objections. As to the first, it is enough to make the distinction between Church and Religion. To say that the State cannot recognize religion because it cannot confer exclusive privileges on a particular form of religion, is absurd. To say that we may not be a Christian nation because no single denomination of Christians can lay claim to precedence, is also