"He should have faith too great for doubt to harm, Patience untouched through all the passing years, "If he have these, and love, no fate can come To make his work as though it had not been; It serveth much, though Death should step between "Or he be fallen, and none know where he fell, ABSTRACT OF THE DISCUSSION. MR. JAMES A. SKILTON: If it be a part of the opportunity and duty of discussing this paper to add something, that would seem to be difficult, if not impossible; if to criticise and condemn, that would seem ungracious, if possible. As a paper devoted exclusively to ethics, I can give it neither one of these methods of treatment, and only highest praise and commendation. And yet, considering the implications that are found between its lines, their proper discussion would seem to require as much time, or space, as the paper itself, and the devotion of an equivalent study, and an equal talent, if that were possible. In this paper the changes are constantly, and nobly, rung on law, obedience, duty, obligation, good, righteousness and words of related import, while emotion is put not simply under a ban, but flatly banished as an unworthy and untrustworthy member of the select brotherhood of virtues. (It may well be doubted if such a thing as "mere emotional sentiment" even can be properly condemned merely as such; for even that, according to our fundamental thesis, is and must be *The Reformer. By William Francis Barnard. Treat supported on a solid physical basis and have its proper place in an evolutionary system.) And this is, as I understand, no mere accident, no mere slip, no mere omission for want of time or space, but an exclusion intended and made necessary to round out an alleged all-sufficient system. So considered, the criticism could not well be too prompt or too vigorous. ment by process of exclusion, for clearness and definiteness, where the subject is large, difficult or obscure, is not only wise but safe; and is often necessary, where the purpose is to make a study or a speculative trial. But where the purpose is to frame a system for practical application, such a method is most dangerous, if not certainly misleading. To be just, and truly ethical, perhaps my criticism should extend beyond the essayist and far enough to reach the board of trustees who selected and settled upon the topics of the season, myself included. Our general topic is: The Physical Basis of Ethics, Sociology and Religion. But devoting the opening essay to a general and preparatory treatment of ethics, we pass over or ignore such a treatment of Sociology and Religion and at once take up specific topics of physics. Ethics is, without religion, soulless, and without sociology homeless-a soulless, homeless wanderer. If all men were (like our genial friend) possessed of a clear and penetrating intellect transfused and all compact with beneficent emotion and righteousness, an ethical system might be framed for their use that would fairly engineer and guide the world and mankind on the hard and uphill road of progress; but, shall I say alas, they are not. Mere law never developed or saved the family; nor can it develop or save the state, or society, which are only the larger family. It is interesting, however, as Arnold would have said, to note how the needed guest and Savior did creep in and find a snug corner for himself, "unbeknownst" like, just at the last. Faith, patience, wisdom-unmoved, calm, "If he have these, and love, no fate can come to make his work as though it had not been." Yes, Ethics shot through with love, we may all say, will answer. But while we may readily admit that-"The moral in man is a supreme fact," we cannot admit that it is the supremest fact or "The final product of the long evolutionary travail." The supremest fact we shall hardly find until we find that love which, while it has true abiding places in society and religion would in both fain extend into the domain of the limitless and the infinite. The question has its practical bearings for us and our work. There are minds upon which lectures on mere ethics act as a sufficient stimulus, but they do not belong to the mass of mankind. Therefore, while we start from a foundation of physics we must rise thereform into the domain of the emotional, if we would have the aid of enthusiasm in giving motion, momentum and working energy to our Propoganda Fide. Dr. ROBERT G. ECCLES: The aim of the present course that has been begun so admirably by Dr. Janes is to lay a physical foun dation for moral law; or, as it were, "to lead from Nature up to Nature's God." The title of the course indicates its scope and shows the aim of those who mapped it out. Every lecture is to be upon some phase of life, and how it has survived and progressed among the ever-changing conditions of the physical world. It is to show that obedience to the laws of being leads toward the higher life while disobedience brings suffering and death. As in the nebulæ lay the potentialities in embryotic activity that have brought into being solar systems and worlds, and in an amoeba those that have finally differentiated into man, so in the world of physical things lie the germs of the moral. Newton's first law of motion is potentially the first law of morality. Action and reaction are equal and opposite in moral things as well as in material, as every person learns sooner or later in life. The New Testament only states in other terms Newton's law when it says "as you sow so shall you also reap." Push a wall with a pressure of ten pounds and it pushes you back with the same pressure; crowd your fellow beings with a given amount of immoral conduct and your fellow beings will crowd you back with equal force. If the wall gives way to your pressure it is only to allow stones and bricks in unstable equilibrium above you to fall and injure you. If you injure your fellows to the extent of forcing movement among them it is only to bring down on your head greater damage as a result. Nature by this law is incessantly seeking for a balance. In physics we call it equilibrium, in morals equity. They are but different names for what fundamentally is the same. Justice is well typified by a pair of scales for this reason. Action and reaction are equal and opposite in kind as well as in amount. Every good deed gives a good reaction to bless him who does it. In the proportion of one's good deeds so is the rate of his happiness; and in the proportion of his evil that of his misery. The very plans pursued by animals in the past that enabled them to survive amid the "rushing metamorphosis" of things, are the plans that you and I must pursue toward society if we would live. On the other hand the plans pursued by iguanodons, megatheriums and other such monsters, which have brought about their extinction, are the plans for us to avoid in dealing with our fellows. Lions, wolves, bears, condors and eagles are fast disappearing. We should learn what the nature of the reaction is that is extinguishing them and avoid repeating their folly in dealing with our fellows. Whenever a race is extinguished it is because some act of its own toward Nature reacted to its detriment. Whenever a race triumphs it is because some act reacts to its advantage. Our worst reaction toward our fellow creature is that of selfish hate. Whenever you dislike a fellow creature it reacts to your misery and the more you dislike that person the more miserable you are. When you dislike two your misery is doubled, three trebled, four quadrupled, etc. Here are action and reaction equal and opposite again. Think of a man who hates everybody and everything and you will have some conception of the immense power of this law. Would it not be better for such a man that he had never been born? Will he not think so himself and be likely to try and extinguish his own life? The opposite form of reaction is as powerful for good and happiness as this for misery. Jesus knew this when he taught that the whole gospel is summed up in the one word "Love." "Love is the fulfilling of the law." When young people love each other with their whole hearts, how intense the happiness. The more unselfishly devoted one creature is to another the more happy that creature becomes. In direct proportion to the number of people we like so is our happiness. In direct proportion, likewise to the intensity of our regard so too is our happiness. He who loves one is happy in that one's presence. Το love two with unselfish love is to double our happiness. To love three is to treble it. To love the whole human family is to live within an atmosphere of beatitude and the more intense that love the greater the joy. The soul must make its own heaven and that too in obedience to this everlasting fundamental law of action and reaction as equal and opposite. The whole universe is seeking equilibrium and equilibrium is the other name for equity or justice. Justice is the reaction of love on love as equilibrium is the reaction of attraction on attraction. The two phases are but aspects of the same thing. Physics is but the material way of viewing being. Psychics is the spiritual way of looking at the same thing. Turn attraction around, wherever you have the power to do so, and you discover in it love. Turn love around and it is only a form of attraction. Longing and desire are some of the simpler manifestations of love. Hunger is the chemical longing of our stomachs for food. Micro-organisms, so small that a wave of light can scarcely span them display hunger, love of light, love of certain chemicals, etc. They are too minute to have any structure like that of our nervous system. They are the uniting links between pure chemical activity and psychical activity. They show the two to be but aspects of one another. Love is attraction and all the evidence we are able to reach clearly implies that attraction is love. This last proposition, of course, awaits demonstration but we have this consolation that all the proof is in its favor. If the whole universe has a psychical aspect and every physical manifestation a corresponding psychical one, the conditions of survival of the remote past must be |