Non-Members may receive this publication by post on payment of 2/8 per CUM MAY, 1937 The Monthly Record of South Place Ethical Society CONWAY HALL, RED LION SQUARE, W.C.1. Telephone : CHANCERY 8032. "The Owerrs Or rim Soarrt are the study and dissemination of ethical principles and the cultivation of a rational religious sentiment." SUNDAY MORNING MEETINGS itt ELEVEN O'CLOCK. April 25—S. K. RATCLIFFE—The New Problem of Loyalty Bass Solo : Breathe soft ye Winds .., ... Handel Mr. G. C. BOWMAN. Soprano Solo : Loveliest of Trees ... ... Graham Peel Miss HESE SIMPSON.- I No.120 and 227. The heart it hath its own estate. - Hymn" -No.28 (second tune). Oh dew of life! oh light of earth! May 2—W: B. CURRY, M.A., B.So.—Miohael Faraday and Scientific Method Pianoforte Solo : Sonata in E minor ...Haydn Presto—Adagio—Molto Vivace. Mr. WILLIAM Buscn. H ymns No. 82. Ala, happy they who feel their birth. No. 59. In silence mighty things are wrought. May 9—PROFESSOR F. AVELING, D.So.—Experimente on Will and Choioe Bass Solo : Sweet Chance that led my steps ... Michael Head Mr. G. C. BOWMAN. Soprano Solo : On Mighty Pens- . ... Haydn Miss HEBE SIMPSON. Hymns No.103. 0 truth! 0 freedom! how ye still are born. No. 24, Tune 211. To mercy, pity, peace and love. May 10—No Meeting May 23—S. K. RATCLIFFE—The Arehbishop's Recall to Religion Bass Solos : (a) The wonderful month of May ... ... Schumann (b) Myself when young.. ... Lehmann Mr. G. C. BOWMAN. Soprano Solo : By the Simplicity of Venus' Doves ... Bishop Miss Herm SIMPSON. Hymns No. 63. All grim and sailed and brown with tan. No. 92. 0 beautiful my country. May 30—J. LANCDON-DAVIES—Edward Gibbon (Bicentenary) First two movements of Sonata in A major, Op. 69, for Violoncello and I. Allegro non troppo. Scherzo. Mr. PETER BEAVAN and Mr. WILLIAM BUSCH. Hymns j No.67. 0 Earth! thy past is crowned and consecrated. No. 5. Britain's first poet, famous old Chaucer. Pianist : Mr. Wonsta Buscn. A Collection is made at each Meeting, to enable those present to contribute to the expenses of the Society. VISITORS WELCOME. OFFICIAL DAR PARK—Opposite Mehl Entrance. 2 MEMBERSHIP Any person in sympathy with the Objects of the Society is cordially invited to become a MEMBER. The minimum annual subscription is los., but it is hoped that Members will subscribe as generously as possible and so assist the Society to meet its heavy annual expenditure. Any person may join as an Associate, but will not be eligible to vote or hold office. Further particulars may be obtained before and after the Services, or on application to the Hon. Registrar, Miss R. Hats. Conway Hall. Red Lion Square, W.C.1. to whom all subscriptions should be paid. HONORARY OFFICERS Treasurer ... C. E. LISTER, Conway Hall, W.C.1. Minutes Secretary... ... EDITH WASHBROOK, 33, Claremont close, N.1. Registrar of Members and Associates I Miss R. Hats, 39, Barclay Road, Fulham, S.W.8. Editor of MONTHLY RECORD F. G. Gomm. Woodrising, Trapps Hill, Loughton, Essex. Librarians . F. STUTTIG, ' Enmore," 12, Durand Gns., Stockwell, 1 Miss D. W. Pur, 32, Albany Road, N.4. GENERAL COMMITTEE C. E. HARRALET. H. LIDSTONE. Miss D WALTERS. J. P. GILMOUR. Mrs. LISTER. F. WASHBROOK. J. A. GRAHAM. DORIS PARTINGTON. Mrs. WATSON. MrS. HAWKINS. MSS H. D. ROMANES. F. C. C. WATTS. 'G. Hurcirmsors. Miss F. J. SIMONS. MISS F. WILKINS. 'Mrs. JAMES. *F. Stumm 'Mrs. WOOD. Mrs. LINDSAY. Miss C. TRESIDDER. W. E. WRIGHT. 'Retire at the Annual Meeting in May. Secretary: S. G. Green, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.1. MARRIAGES. Conway Hall Ls registered for marriages. FUNERAL SERVICES can be arranged by the Society. Applications should be addressed to the Secretary. • • The Society does not hold itself responsible for views expressed or reported in the "RECORD.' PERSONAL VIRTUE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE The traditional ethical idea of a good man is defective both because it under- estimates the importance of thinking and because it disregards the chief problems of social Justice. It is too often assumed that the good man is only a man with good intentions or good will. But good intentions are not valid excuses for action which is not right. The Inquisitor,‘ for example, did wrong in burning heretics, even if he "meant well." And no one can discover what it is right to do, merely by consulting his own conscience. It is still more important, however, that the question, what it is right to do, involves a social problem. The good man is not one who merely makes the best of a bad job—giving charity to the poor, or being kind to slaves, or doing what his forefathers did in war. It is the duty of a good man to do what he can to abolish the " bad job," and not to perpetuate it by making the best of it. But the majority of us are still hampered by the old Christian idea that the established social situation i4 the will of God: and it is only changing the words, not the sense, to say that the social situation is the result of Nature playing at Evolution. Greed and cunning may bring wealth and power to individuals or to nations; but neither God nor Nature can justify greed and cunning, nor excuse the neglect to attack them because those who inherit the advantages derived from them now dominate the world. St. Paul was wrong if he supposed that the chief duty of a slave-owner was to be kind to his slaves or the chief duty of a subject to obey whatever powers that be. The real issue is not the good or bad will of the slave-owner or the despot. It is slavery or despotism itself. And similarly the moral problem to-day is not whether the rich should be kind or the poor grateful, but whether a situation should exist at all in which some have too much and others too little to live upon. This is not an " economic " problem. Nor does it imply any hypothetical equality. It is a moral 3 problem of useless and pernicious surplus on the one hand, and morally degrading social conditions on the other. A community in which these exist is morally bad: and anyone who does nothing to change it—in so far as his inertia is not due to a total inability to think at all—is a bad man. If he spends all his energy on his own " soul " or in getting a living, he is bad, because there is no personal virtue which excludes public duty. It is not a question of politics or of supporting any particular party or programme or policy. All these are different means: but the final end is a moral situation—better morally than the present in the relations between men. What that better moral situation may be is by no means so clear as some of our more dogmatic " leaders " would like us to believe. But here again, as in the case of good intentions, we need thinking. The chief point is that it is a moral and not merely an " economic " problem that we need to think about. The problem is not how much each person should possess, but what sort of men and women we should desire to be, and what the moral relations of the members of a good community should be. It is not a question of a millennium or of a " future life " for our children in a Fascist or Marxist heaven. It is a question of here and now. Given the actual good and evil in the community in which we live, what should we do about it? What, in fact, is each one of us doing to change the social conditions under which millions of men, women and children are enslaved, by having too little for a free and fine life? Do we really believe that the malnutrition of children is " the will of God " or the necessary result of "Evolution "? Is it not the result partly of the greed and cunning of those with exceptional ability, and mainly of our own carelessness about anything that does not obviously affect our own comfort? Poverty is a sign of a moral defeat in a community. The same principle holds with regard to that other great social evil of to-day— war and the preparation for war. Those who go to war may have the best intentions: but all war is evil morally—not because it destroys life and propertY, but because It degrades men by Its use of violence, deceit and blind subservience to popular passion. A good man, therefore, even if he fights in war—as one may restrain a lunatic—must at the same time and all the time work for the abolition of all war and the substitu- tion of a world-order to replace the moral absurdity of " national defences": which is a defence against another " national defence." Public duty in this matter is certainly not confined to following the old road to destruction because a Government or a leader has not had the sense to take the right turning. In any case the good num has no moral right to " mind his own business " only. There is more moral excellence in paying taxes than in giving charity. There is no "invisible hand " which makes roads or drains, if the hands of men do not make these common goods for the common well-being.