Christianity and Ethics | Page 5

of the age must be overcome by
the advocacy of an idealistic conception which insists not only upon the
personality and worth of man, involving duties as well as rights, but
also upon the supremacy of conscience in obedience to the law of
Christ. Above all, we need an ethic which will show that religion must
be co-extensive with life, transfiguring and spiritualising all its
activities and relationships. Life is a unity and all duty is one, whether
it be duty to God or duty to man. It must be all of a piece, like the robe
of Christ, woven from the top to the bottom without seam. It takes its
spring from one source and is dominated by one spirit. In the
Christianity of Christ there stand conspicuous two great ideas bound
together, indeed, in a higher--love to God the Father. These are
personal perfection and the service of mankind--the culture of self and
the care of others. 'Be ye perfect' and 'love your neighbour as yourself.'
It is the glory of Christianity to have harmonised these seemingly
competing aims. The disciple of Christ finds that he cannot realise his
own life except as he seeks the good of others; and that he cannot
effectively help his fellows except by giving to them that which he
himself is. This, as we take it, is the Christian conception of the moral
life; and it is {6} the business of Christian Ethics to show that it is at
once reasonable and practical.
The present volume will be divided into four main parts, entitled,
Postulates, Personality, Character and Conduct. The first will deal
with the meaning of Ethics generally and its relation to cognate
subjects; and specially with the Philosophical, Psychological and
Theological presuppositions of Christian Ethics. The second part will
be devoted to man as moral subject, and will analyse the capacities of
the soul which respond to the calls and claims of the new Life. The
third Section will involve a consideration of the formative Principles of
Character, the moulding of the soul, the Ideals, Motives and Forces by
means of which the 'New Man' is 'recreated' and fashioned. Finally,
under Conduct, the Virtues, Duties and Rights of man will be discussed;

and the various spheres of service and institutions of society examined
in relation to which the moral life in its individual and social aspects is
manifested and developed.

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SECTION A
POSTULATES
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CHAPTER I
THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF ETHICS
Philosophy has been defined as 'thinking things together.' Every man,
says Hegel, is a philosopher, and in so far as it is the natural tendency
of the human mind to connect and unify the manifold phenomena of
life, the paradox of the German thinker is not without a measure of
truth. But while this is only the occasional pastime of the ordinary
individual, it is the conscious and habitual aim of the philosopher. In
daily life people are wont to make assumptions which they do not
verify, and employ figures of speech which of necessity are partial and
inadequate. It is the business of philosophy to investigate the
pre-suppositions of common life and to translate into realities the
pictures of ordinary language. It was the method of Socrates to
challenge the current modes of speaking and to ask his fellow-men
what they meant when they used such words as 'goodness,' 'virtue,'
'justice.' Every time you employ any of these terms, he said, you
virtually imply a whole theory of life. If you would have an intelligent
understanding of yourself and the world of which you form a part, you
must cease to live by custom and speak by rote. You must seek to bring
the manifold phenomena of the universe and the various experiences of
life into some kind of unity and see them as co-ordinated parts of a
whole.

When men thus begin to reflect on the origin and connection of things,
three questions at once suggest themselves--what, how, and why? What
is the world? How do I know it? and why am I here? We might briefly
classify the three great departments of human thought as attempts {10}
to answer these three inquiries. What exists is the problem of
Metaphysics. What am I and how do I know? is the question of
Psychology. What is my purpose, what am I to do? is the subject of
Ethics. These questions are closely related, and the answer given to one
largely determines the solution of the others. The truths gained by
philosophical thought are not confined to the kingdom of abstract
speculation but apply in the last resort to life. The impulse to know is
only a phase of the more general impulse to be and to act. Beneath all
man's activities, as their source and spring, there