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an African village, some of the negro women ministered to him, chanting a ditty the refrain of which as translated by him was: "Let us pity the poor white man; he has no mother to bring him milk; no wife to grind him corn." Men everywhere and in all ages have the common characteristics of human nature. They think, and feel, and act as

men.

"Skins may differ, but affection

Dwells in white and black the same."

Uniformity of action among men arises, also, from the action of the same outward agencies on their common human nature. If an Esquimaux goes to the torrid zone he will cease to wear furs and to eat blubber. This is no argument against free-will; free-will does not control the weather, nor, directly and immediately, its effect on the physical system. Yet free-will does not therefore cease to act; for if the Esquimaux did not leave off his furs under the heat he would show that he was not a reasonable being. His arctic dog could not by an act of will throw off his hair nor adjust himself to meet the exigencies of the climate. Free-will does not create man's physical organization and strength, nor the action of cosmic forces on him. It exerts his physical and intellectual power and directs it to chosen ends. It determines him to exertion by which he subdues nature and makes it serve him; and while subduing nature he develops himself.

Therefore the uniformity of man's action as it actually exists is no argument against free-will.

74. Sociology and Free-Will.

A science of Sociology consistent with free-will is possible.

I. An attempted sociology, founded on the denial of free-will, cannot be science. It has no right to call itself an inductive or empirical science; for it begins by arbitrarily denying or ignoring the most fundamental, important and certain of all the facts pertaining to humanity: free-will and personality, moral responsibility and character, and religion. It assumes some theory of knowledge which limits it to objects. of sense; it assumes that man's action and character are caused by the same chemical and mechanical forces which cause the combinations and motions of bodies, and in accordance with the same chemical and mechanical laws. A sociology, which thus starts in dogmatic assumption refusing to take note of facts patent to the universal consciousness of man, must be vitiated with defect and error throughout, and its propagation and reception must hinder human progress and benumb the noblest powers of man. For example, an eminent professor of Social Science says: "It is incontestably plain that a man who accepts the dogmas about social living which are imposed by the

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authority of any religion must regard the subject of right social living as settled and closed, and he cannot enter on any investigation the first groundwork of which would be doubt of the authority which he recognizes as final. . . The human race has never done anything else but struggle with the problem of social welfare. That struggle embraces all minor problems which occupy human attention here, save those of religion, which reaches beyond this world and finds its objects beyond this life." According to the latest conclusions of anthropology religion has existed among all races and tribes of men. It is notorious, also, that instead of pertaining to the other world alone, it claims to regulate life to the deepest springs of character, and has been one of the most powerful factors in human history. It is itself a great sociological fact which all true sociology must recognize. As to the intimation that a belief in any religion disqualifies the believer for a candid investigation of sociology, we may ask, in view of the almost universal existence of religion, Who are to be the candid sociologists? Must all sociologists be atheists? And even an atheist, if he has no religion, is certainly a metaphysician and a theologian; and, as Comte has somewhere said, the most illogical of them all, because he busies himself about an insolvable problem and gives its least plausible solution. And the objection against religion is equally pertinent against morality. The law of universal love, the first principles of truthfulness, justice and benevolence are settled beyond dispute.

"The primal duties shine aloft like stars."

Do right moral convictions and character disqualify a man for the candid study of sociology? This writer's assertion respecting religion sweeps to the conclusion that fixed moral and religious convictions are incompatible with candid investigation. If a man would suffer death rather than do a dishonorable deed, that character would make him incompetent for a candid investigation of what constitutes the welfare of society and what are the most effective methods of promoting it. The fact is that a virtuous man's ineradicable conviction that the law of love is supreme is entirely consistent with continual progress in the knowledge of the significance and applications of the law and of the best methods of making its control in society effectual; it is consistent also with the correction and improvement of his own character, and his advance in the delicacy of his own moral discernment as well as in moral power. So the Christian's ineradicable faith in God is entirely consistent with increasing knowledge of him and of all reality, and of the applications of all known truth in promoting the welfare of man. There is no more inconsistency here than there is between an astrono⚫

mer's ineradicable belief in the law of gravitation and the revolution of the earth around the sun, and his correction of old errors and acquisition of new astronomical knowledge from year to year through his whole life.

II. Sociology will never reduce human action to the exactness of mechanical laws. This is impossible for the simple reason that man is not a machine but a person. Free-will is a power above mechanism. The law to personal free-agents is the moral law, the law of love; not the uniform sequences of mechanism and chemical affinity. And it is inherent in the very essence of free-will that it can disobey law. Hence the actions of particular persons or communities cannot be foretold with unerring accuracy. The man who was a blasphemer in the morning may be a penitent at night. The young man who till yesterday has abstained from intoxicating drink may drink to drunkenness to-day. A community quiet under despotism this year may be in armed revolution the next. In the Duke of Alva's time a Protestant fleeing from an officer of the Inquisition crossed a frozen lake. His pursuer broke through the ice and was likely to be drowned; the fugitive, hearing his cries, returned and rescued him from death. Then the officer seized the unarmed and defenceless man and delivered him up to the Inquisition. No person, probably, would have predicted that a man would make this return to one who had voluntarily come back to him and saved him from death. In all calculations as to the probability of human action, the moral character of a person or a community, acquired by free choice, must be taken into account. The very same agencies and influences which move one person or community to righteous and benevolent action will move a person or community of different moral character to unrighteous and selfish action.

III. There is a sphere for a sociology compatible with free-will in the uniformity actually found in human action and arising not merely from the common constitution and common outward conditions of men, but also from free choice itself as it forms moral character, determines the effect of outward agencies on the action, modifies the constitutional powers and susceptibilities, and guides and directs their development.

By the study of man as he is and has been, sociology may ascertain what ends it is possible to attain for his welfare and what are impossible from the limitations of his being; what welfare can be realized for him directly by his own free choice, and what can be realized only by a gradual amelioration of his condition through a larger knowledge and control of the resources of nature and a further training and development of the man. It may open the way to wiser legislation and statesmanship by disclosing the immediate or proximate ends to be

aimed at in human progress, the principles which must guide and the methods which are most effective in attaining those ends.

In a paper read before the American Social Science Association in 1869, General Garfield said: "Society is an organism whose elements and forces conform to laws as constant and pervasive as those which govern the material universe, and the study of these laws will enable man to ameliorate his condition, to emancipate himself from the cruel dominion of superstition and from countless evils which were once thought beyond his control, and will make him the master, rather than the slave of nature." This is true, with the explanation that society is subject both to the laws of nature and to the moral law. As implicated in nature man is subject to the laws and course of nature; in heredity and all physiological and physical processes nature acts through his physical organization as really as through the trees. Here is one sphere of sociology in studying the physical and physiological laws of man's nature and applying them to improve his physical condition, constitution and development. But as a rational free-agent man is above the fixed course of nature; he determines the direction and exertion of his energies and so becomes, as Gen. Garfield says, "the master rather than the slave of nature." As rational and free, the law to which he is subject is the moral law of love. This does not, like a law of nature, declare the uniform fact that he does conform to the law, but only his obligation or duty, while he is free to obey or disobey. Here is another and higher sphere of sociology, in investigating the dependence of the prosperity and progress of society on the development of man's moral and spiritual capacities and on his conformity to the law of love to God and man, and in studying the motives and the methods of presenting them most influential in inducing men to live right and so to realize the highest possibilities of their being. Here, in entire consistency with man's freedom, sociology may investigate what the well-being of the individual and of society is and what are the wise methods of promoting it. All questions of reform and progress and of the methods of promoting them are within its sphere: as, the legitimate sphere of legislation in promoting good morals; the penal legislation most effective to protect society from crime; the legislation which will present the most influential motives to stimulate industry and to insure the largest development of the resources of the country. For instance, sociology may ascertain in respect to protection or free-trade whether legislation should follow the principle that the prosperity of a nation is promoted by the peaceful prosperity of other nations, or the contrary principle that the prosperity of a nation is hindered by the prosperity of other nations. Whichever principle is found to be sustained by facts, sociology will proceed to ascertain what methods are most effective in applying the principle.

In such studies, however, the sociologist must not refuse to take notice of the principles of morals and religion, nor dismiss with a sneer as "sentimentalists" and "doctrinaires" those who are trying to advance society towards conformity with these principles as essential to its true welfare. Recognizing morality and religion as great factors in human history, sociology must ascertain by what errors and misapplications they have been perverted from their legitimate influence, and by what methods they can be made most effective in eradicating vice and purifying and elevating the moral and spiritual tone of society. The education of the young, for example, is a topic for sociological investigation. But the question of moral and religious instruction is inseparable from the institution of public schools. The restriction of education in the public schools to intellectual instruction, excluding the teaching of morals as founded in reverence for God and consisting in love to God and our neighbor as commanded by God's law, is a very simple way of settling the question. It is as unscientific and superficial as it is simple, and if ever generally carried strictly into practice, will prove itself a fatal error.

It has been found in the progress of the Christian nations, which for ages have been the only progressive ones, that the principles which society has gradually come to apply in the development of its civilization, are the same which are taught in the life and teaching of Christ. The dignity and worth of a man by virtue of his personality, or, as we say, his manhood; the consequent sacredness of his rights; the rights of the individual in society as against despotic government, and the duties of society, however governed, to the individual; these and kindred truths have been powers in the political progress of the three last centuries. Whatever speculative recognition of them may be found here and there among the greatest heathen writers, it is indisputably Christianity which has made them practical powers in the creation of modern civilization. It was the revival of Christianity in the Protestant Reformation, going back beyond accumulated traditions and corruptions to the primitive principles and power of Christianity, which initiated this great movement and has given it its vitality. The principles which are to solve the social problems now urgent, lie waiting their application in the Christian law of service: "Whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be your servant; even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many;"-Greatness for service; Greatness by service. And this principle our Lord announces explicitly as the principle of a new and Christian civilization: "Ye know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Not so shall it be among you."

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