This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. http://books.google.com FROM THE BEQUEST OF JAMES WALKER (Class of 1814) President oj Harvard College "Preference being given to works in the Intellectual and Moral Sciences " nammammrf AN ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE PRESENTED IN ITS MAIN OUTLINES BOOKS BY FELIX ADLER An Ethical Philosophy of Life The World CrUU and Its Meaning Marriage and Divorce Life and Destiny The Religion of Duty The Moral Instruction of Children IM AN ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE PRESENTED IN ITS MAIN OUTLINES BY FELIX ADLER D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918 ( MAY 221910 ) COPTRIOBT, 1918, BT D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America PREFACE This book records a philosophy of life growing out of the experience of a lifetime. The convictions put in it are not dog matic, for dogma is the conviction of one man imposed author itatively upon others. The convictions herein expounded are submitted to those who search, as the writer has searched, for light on the problems of life, in order that they may compare their experience with his, and their interpretations of their ex perience with his interpretation.1 It is a great hope that some of the readers of this book may find the general world-view expounded congenial, and for them also real and true. It is believed that others may find the practical suggestions as to the conduct of life in which the theory issues helpful in part, if not in whole, as many of us accept from the teachings of the Stoics, or of other thinkers, practical precepts, without on that account adopting the philosophy from which these precepts are derived. The book is divided into four parts: the first an autobi ographical introduction describing the various stations on the road by which the author arrived at his present position, and offering incidental appreciations and appraisements of the Hebrew religion, of Emerson, of the ethics of the Gospels, of Socialism and of other social reform movements. The second part expounds the philosophical theory. The third part contains the applications of the theory to the more strictly personal life, under the captions of the Three 1 In view of the writer's connection with the Ethical Culture So cieties it is fitting to state expressly that the philosophical positions herein set forth are not to be taken as an official pronouncement on behalf of the Ethical Culture Movement. The Ethical Societies as such have no official philosophy. See Book IV, Chapter 9. v vi PREFACE Shadows of Sickness, Sorrow and Sin, and also to the principal so-called Rights to Life, Property, Reputation. The fourth part applies the theory to the social institutions, to the Family, the Vocation, the State, the International So ciety, and the Church, these institutions being considered as an expanding series through which the individual is to pass on his pilgrimage in the direction of the supreme spiritual end. The principal problems considered are: 1. How to establish the fundamental ethical dictum that every human being ought to count, and is intrinsically worth while. This dictum has been denied by many of the greatest thinkers, who assert the intrinsic inferiority of some men, the intrinsic superiority of others. The practice of the world also runs most distinctly contrary to it. How then is it to be validated? 2. The problem of how to attach a precise meaning to the term "spiritual," thereby divesting it of the flavor of sentimen tality and vagueness that attaches to it. 8. How to link up the world's activities in science, art, politics, business, to the supreme ethical end. 4. How to lay foundations whereon to erect the convic tion that there verily is a supersensible reality. For the repetitions that occur throughout the volume in dulgence is requested. In presenting an unfamiliar system of thought they may sometimes assist the reader in retaining the thread. The work is conceived as a whole, and should be read through before any part of it is more minutely examined. The theory of Part II especially should be read in the light of the appli cations submitted in Parts IU and IV. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CONTENTS BOOK IINTRODUCTION CHAPTER PAGE I. Prelcde 3 II. The Hebrew Religion 14 III. Emerson 27 IV. The Teachings op Jesus 30 V. Social Reform 48 VI. The Influence of My Vocation on Inner Devel opment 58 BOOK II PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY I. Introductory Remarks: Critique of Kant . 73 II. Critique of Kant (Continued) .... 82 III. Preliminary Remarks on Worth, and on the Rea sons Why the Method Employed by Ethics Must Be the Opposite of That Employed by the Physical Sciences ..... 91 IV. The Ideal of the Whole 100 V. The Ideal of the Whole and the Ethical Mani fold . ... .114 VI. The Ideal of the Spiritual Universe and the God- Ideal 125 BOOK III APPLICATIONS: THE THREE SHADOWS, SICKNESS, SORROW AND SIN, AND THE RIGHT TO LIFE, PROPERTY AND REPUTATION I. Introduction 147 II. The Three Shadows: Sickness, Sorrow, Sin . .154 vfl viii CONTENTS CHAPTER • PAGE III. Bereavement 162 IV. The Shadow op Sin . .171 V. The Spiritual Attitude to be Observed towards Fellow-Men in General, Irrespective of the Special Relations Which Connect Us More Closely with Some than Others . .179 VI. The Meaning of Forgiveness .... 202 VII. The Supreme Ethical Rule: Act so as to Elicit the Best in Others and Thereby in Thyself 208 VIII. The Supreme Ethical Rule (Continued) . 220 IX. How to Learn to See the Spiritual Numen in Others 228 BOOK IV APPLICATIONS: THE ETHICS OF THE FAMILY, THE STATE, THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, ETC. I. The Collective Task of Mankind and the Three fold Reverence ...... 241 II. The Family 249 IIJ. The Vocations 260 IV. The Practical Vocations 270 V. The Vocation of the Artist: Outline of a Theory of the Relation of Art to Ethics . 277 VI. Educational Vocations, or Vocations Connected with the State 289 VII. The State 805 VIII. The National Character Spiritually Trans formed: the International Society, or the Organization of Mankind .... 824 IX. Religious Fellowship as the Culminating Social Institution 841 X. The Last Outlook on Life 854 APPENDIX Appendix I: Spiritual Self-Discipline .... 865 Appendix II: The Exercise of Force in the Interest op Freedom 869 INDEX 875 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL BOOK I INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I PRELUDE What this book offers is a system of thought and of points of view as to conduct, as these have jointly grown out of personal experience. It will be useful to introduce them with an autobiographical statement. The ideas which follow are such as have been found by me, the author, to be fruitful. Certainly I claim for them objectivity; but I do so because of what I have found them to mean in my own life. He who has been scorched by lightning knows that the effects of the lightning will be felt by all who are exposed to the same experience. I narrate my experience ; let others compare with it theirs. There is, however, a serious, and most embarrassing difficulty in the way of discussing the phases and vicissi tudes of one's ethical development. Self-appraisement is necessarily involved in the narration. The outstand ing subject of ethics is the self and its relations. The physicist, the chemist, the biologist, however the meth ods they use may differ in other respects, agree in the endeavor to eliminate the personal equation. The psy chologist likewise does his best to see the procession that moves across the inner stage like an interested but detached spectator. In the case of ethics, however, the personal factor cannot be eliminated, because the per- 3 4 AN ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE sonal factor is just the Alpha and the Omega of the whole matter; and if this be left out of account, the very object to be studied disappears. Ethical standards are exacting, separated often from performance by the widest interval. To set up a stand ard, therefore, is to reflect upon oneself, to expose one self to the backstroke of one's own deliverances, to be plunged perhaps into deep pits of self-humiliation. How shall anyone have the courage to face so search ing a test, or the hardihood to discuss with a lofty air, and to recommend to others ideals of conduct against which he knows that he daily offends? How can anyone teach ethics or write about it? The words of the Sermon on the Mount, "Judge not that ye be not judged," seem to apply very closely. Do not judge others, do not lay down the law for others, because in so doing you will be judged in the inner forum, becoming a re pulsive object in your own eyes, or standing forth a whited sepulcher. In brief, to touch the subject of ethics is to handle a knife that cuts both ways, to cast a weapon which returns upon him who sends it. The difficulty then which confronts the ethical writer is that the attitude of detachment possible in other branches of investigation is found to be impossible when one attempts to sound the profundities of that kind of inner experience which is called ethical. The self ob trudes itself at every point, and it instinctively refuses to be humbled. What may be denominated the strug gle for self-esteem has indeed played a leading role both in the outer and inner history of mankind. This struggle, whose immense importance is often overlooked, PRELUDE 5 accounts for even more interesting facts than the bio logical struggle for existence.