Does civilization need religion?

While there is good reason to regret the individualism of Protestantism in a civilization which has increased the intimacy of all human relations and made social and economic interdependence a basic fact, yet it alone cannot be held responsible for the unethical nature of modern society. This is attributable as much to the greater difficulties which the human conscience faces in modern life as to any weakness in the moral and religious idealism by which it is informed. A much more adequate type of religious idealism might have been unequal to the task of preserving ethical values in modern life.

The gradual secularization of economics through the growing complexity of commercial relations has been a previous interest of our study. When it became inconvenient and difficult to make simple moral standards, expressed in prohibitions of usury and maintenance of a “just price,” fit the new intricacies of international commerce and industrial production, we have seen how men turned naturally and inevitably to the consoling reflection that “in the providence of God life is so arranged that each man seeking his own shall serve the common weal.” The doctrine of laissez faire was in other words as much an admission of defeat on the part of the moral forces of society as it was a conscious effort toward secularization. Other factors beside a growing complexity of social life helped however to secularize modern society. Modern commerce and industry tend to increase the extent of coöperative effort while they diminish personal contacts. World commerce and large-scale production make human beings interdependent without offering them the opportunity of entering upon personal associations. There is a natural sympathy in the soul which saves men from actions which are very obviously detrimental to their fellows. But if they are unable to survey the consequences of their actions or to gauge the reactions to their attitudes in the lives of others, their temptation to unethical conduct is materially increased. The master of a manufacturing unit in the old handcraft period of industry thus found it much easier to maintain moral relations to his workers than a modern, frequently absentee, owner of a large factory. If in addition ownership becomes collective, with the resulting division of responsibility, while the number of workers increases until individuals lose their significance in the mass, the problem of making industrial relations ethical is further complicated. Ethical conduct is, in its last analysis, based upon reverence for personality; and personality fails to make its appeal to the conscience when considered in the mass and when regarded at too long range. In such circumstances a degree of intelligence and imagination, which mankind has not yet achieved, is required to gauge the effect of industrial and commercial policy upon the individuals who are involved in it. The unethical nature of modern civilization with its destruction of confidence in the moral integrity of human nature and with its deterministic obsessions is largely due to its mechanical perfections which have increased the extent of social coöperation while they have decreased personal contacts.

The same means of commerce and communication which have increased the size of industrial groups and extended the range of commercial transactions have also enlarged the political units and increased interdependence between them. We are living in a world in which a financial depression in America results in a panic upon the silk exchange of Tokio; in which a boycott upon cotton goods initiated by a Gandhi in India throws thousands of cotton spinners in Manchester into unemployment; and in which Western industrialism may exploit Chinese labor in the seaports of China without one beneficiary of this industrialism out of a million being able to make a mental picture of the social consequences of the commercial policies from which he benefits. The difficulty of these long-range relationships is further complicated by the fact that the participants are separated not only by great distances but by the barriers of race and nationality. All social decencies in the past have developed within the bounds of the group, and men have not yet learned to treat individuals in other groups with confidence, respect and honesty. Attitudes of tenderness, sympathy and affection have been confined very largely to the family group. From this intimate group they were finally sluiced out to effect social relations in larger groups, but they have not changed inter-group relations. Civilization has increased the size of groups in which human relations have an ethical basis, but it has not moralized the action of the group nor taught individuals in one social group to treat individuals in other groups with the respect and confidence which a wholesome social life requires. The connotation of contempt which the Jews placed in the word “gentile” and the Greeks in the word “barbarian” may be matched in the terminology of practically every people. When groups are geographically separated, as in the case of political states, fear and misunderstanding are multiplied by the ignorance which results from a lack of contacts. But contacts alone do not remove them; for the relations of political, social and racial groups within the boundaries of the same state are only slightly more ethical, as for instance the relation between white and colored people in the United States or of the Scotch and Irish in Ulster. Human imagination and intelligence have not been equal to the task of extending ethical attitudes beyond the boundaries of the group.

The ethical problem of group relations is made still more difficult by the expansive desires and unethical attitudes which develop naturally within the group as a corporate entity. That is, groups as such find it even more difficult to maintain moral attitudes toward other groups than do the individuals within it toward individuals in other racial or political unities. All human groups tend to be more predatory than the individuals which compose them. The most tender emotions may characterize the relations of members of a family to each other; but the family as such is easily tempted to gain its advantages at the expense of other families. The tendency of family loyalty to accentuate covetousness has been frequently noted by social observers who have seen the family instinct as the very basis of the sanctity which civilization has given private property. Religious organizations are not free of the imperial ambitions which come naturally to social groups of every kind. One fruitful cause of the dilution of religious idealism is the desire of religious groups to gain power and prestige among larger numbers. They therefore soften the rigor of their ideal that it may captivate the morally mediocre majority. Both employers and employees frequently find agreement in specific cases of conflict difficult because the policies of both are determined by considerations of loyalty to their respective groups. Of all human groups the political state is probably most inclined to unethical conduct. It was a dictum of George Washington’s that a nation was not to be trusted beyond its interests, and history supports the justice of his observation. After shrewdly observing the statesmen of England equivocate on the attitude of their nation toward the southern rebellion until they could determine their policy by considerations of expediency, Henry Adams came to the melancholy conclusion that masses of men were always moved by interest and never by conscience and that morality is a private and a costly luxury.⁠[15] One reason why the relations of nations to each other are still characterized by primitive fears and excessive caution is because their actions have not, as a matter of fact, been morally dependable. The problem of making nations and other groups conform to ethical standards of any kind is particularly difficult because the ethical attitude of the individual toward his group easily obscures the unethical nature of the group’s desires. The patriot identifies his tender emotions toward his nation with the attitude of the nation itself until he becomes incapable of a critical appraisal of its policy; or he frankly condones the selfishness of the nation because he recognizes no ethical values beyond those implicit in group loyalty. The father of a family may feel moral pride in essentially selfish pursuits because he means to secure advantages by them not for himself but for his family. Loyalty to “the firm” may give the business man a consciousness of virtue even though it forces him to connive in predatory practices of his concern. The class-conscious worker may be willing to disrupt society in the interest of his class because all his moral needs are satisfied by his devotion to what he regards as the most significant social group. While this ethical paradox of patriotism is obviously not confined to political groups, the nation is most seriously tempted to unethical conduct because it is not a voluntary association, its group is conveniently isolated from others and loyalty to it is least qualified by other conflicting loyalties. It may be set down as a truth of almost axiomatic finality, that groups tend to be unethical in proportion to the degree of unqualified loyalty which they are able to claim or exact of their members. In this connection it may be noted that democracy has increased rather than diminished the imperialism of nations, for it has given patriotism a higher moral sanction and thus reduced the moral scruples which might qualify the loyalty of their citizens. The arrogance of nations and their insistence on moral autonomy has developed simultaneously with the extension of democracy. It is this ethical paradox of patriotism which invalidates the contention that the root of all imperialism is the imperialism of the individual. It is true of course that group loyalty may become a device for delegating our vices to the group and imagining ourselves virtuous. Some types of political arrogance and race prejudice are obviously methods of compensating individuals for their lack of opportunity to bully their immediate neighbors. Yet on the whole the unethical character of group action is determined as much by the partial virtues as by the vices of individuals.

The problem of bringing groups under some kind of ethical control is not new in history. It has become unusually difficult in the modern world not only because of the consolidation of the authority of the state but also because rapid means of communication have increased the size of social, political and economic units and made relations between them more intricate. The larger the unit the more unqualified seems to be the moral sanction which loyalty to it may claim. To an average citizen, immersed in his parochial interests, the nation appears in the light of a universal community in contrast to the smaller and voluntary communities within the nation. Yet this same nation is one of many human groups, most of which betray imperial desires reminiscent of Rome but which aspire in vain after the universal dominion which gave Roman imperialism a measure of moral worth. Treitschke, whose philosophy of history was the object of so much opprobrium during the World War that its faithfulness to the general prejudices of Western life would hardly be surmised, presented the nation as the ultimate community because all smaller societies are too petty to deserve and all larger ones too vague and abstract to claim the unqualified allegiance of men.

The intricacies and propinquities of an industrial civilization tend at some points to increase the imperial desires of nations and at others to make their ordinary lusts more deadly. The feud between Germany and France is a very ancient one, but the need of French industry for German coal and of German industry for French iron explains some aspects of their present difficulties which are not derived from ancient animosities. Modern industry needs a unified world and, lacking it, each nation is inclined to seek the completion of its industrial establishment by the forcible appropriation of territory, rich in needed resources. The economic imperialism of industrially advanced nations is a product of the high productivity of modern industry which produces more than one national unit can consume and which needs more raw materials than the same nation can produce. Covetous eyes are consequently turned upon undeveloped portions of the globe, rich in raw materials and hungry for the products of modern industry. In one sense the European war was incubated in Africa. Rapid means of communication also extend the reach of the grasping nations. China is attempting to throw off the shackles of a Western imperialism which could never have gained the position it holds on Chinese soil but for the new contiguity which has destroyed the boundaries between East and West. Moreover, the intricacies of international commerce and finance offer opportunities for a new kind of economic imperialism which hardly needs, though it does not always avoid, the use of political force. The economic forces of one nation simply penetrate the economic life of another and, if there is a great disparity in economic power, the weaker nation is brought under the dominion of the stronger without the citizens of either being aware of the process by which this has been accomplished. This is the type of imperialism which America is most fitted and inclined to develop. In South America political pressure does accompany economic penetration, but in Europe American power increases under a policy of political isolation. The isolationism of America, which has become a firmly established foreign policy since the war, is prompted partly by the sense of power which America feels as the richest nation of the world, and partly by a political infantilism which tempts us both to pharisaism and to fear when dealing with the supposedly more astute political bargainers of Europe. The relation of America to the rest of the world is a perfect example of the moral peril in the new intricacies of modern civilization. The citizen of the state is as ignorant of the actual character of his nation’s relation to other nations as of other peoples’ reactions to the real policy of his own government. Probably not one American in a thousand is able to comprehend a single reason why Europe should fear or hate America and not more than one in a hundred is actually aware of the existence of such hatreds and fears. There is therefore an unconscious hypocrisy in the moral pretensions of the citizens of every nation, a more or less conscious hypocrisy in the attitudes of the governments which do not share but yet exploit the political ignorance of the people, and an inevitable reaction of cynicism on the part of those who know the real facts and suffer from the moral limitations of the nation’s policy. Group relations, particularly those which are intricate, are thus persistently unethical because part of the modern world is too ignorant to make them ethical and the other part is so worldly-wise that it has lost confidence in the possibility of ethical relations. Frequently hypocrisy and cynicism are united in the same person who knows how to discount the moral pretensions of other groups but lacks the perspective from which he might arrive at a critical evaluation of the real character of his own group. This curious combination of insincerity and cynicism is obvious in the relation of both economic and national groups, but it is particularly noticeable in international difficulties. In the struggle between economic groups there is a growing inclination to make no moral pretensions on either side. Sometimes the group in power makes them but in that case its insincerity is usually conscious rather than ignorant. In international affairs the same patriots who ignorantly persecute every person who seeks to qualify national loyalty or to make a dispassionate appraisal of national policies frequently sink into moral despair and disillusionment when history unfolds the inevitable consequences of the anarchy of conflicting national lusts.

The task of making complex group relations ethical belongs primarily to religion and education because statecraft cannot rise above the universal limitations of human imagination and intelligence. A robust ethical idealism, an extraordinary spiritual insight and a high degree of intelligence are equally necessary for such a social task. The difficulties of the problem are enhanced by the fact that the religious imagination and astute intelligence which are equally necessary for its solution are incompatible with each other. Religion is naturally jealous of any partner in a redemptive enterprise; and the same intelligence which is needed to guide moral purpose in a complex situation easily lames the moral will and dulls the spiritual insight. It is possible that this difficulty may permanently destroy every vestige of morality in the group relations of modern society. The necessary partnership and the inevitable conflict between the religio-moral and the rational forces is obvious in both the political and the economic problems of the present age.

The unqualified authority and the boundless lusts of a modern state need first of all to be brought under the scrutiny of clear minds who understand the implications and can gauge the consequences of its pretensions. Patriotism is a form of altruism and as such represents the victory of ultra-rational sanctions over the selfish inclinations of individuals which seem quite reasonable to the average man. The emotional attitude and ethical achievement in patriotism endows the patriot with a kind of madness and pride which make him as scornful of more rational types of altruism as of the prudent and cautious selfishness with which he has his primary conflict. It is because patriotism represents a victory of an ethical ideal that religion so easily becomes its uncritical partner. When many hearts are cold anything that warms them will seem religious to the undiscriminating champion of religious values. The defects of patriotic altruism are thus left to the correction of rationalistic idealists who know how to discover the absurdities into which an uncritical devotion to partial values may issue and how to envisage the larger community of mankind of which the nation is a part. During the last war moral idealists of rationalistic persuasion, such as Bertrand Russell, Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse and Bernard Shaw, were more detached in their perspective and freer of war hysterias than any religious leaders of equal standing. To envisage the larger community of mankind which lacks the physical symbols of the state and to dispel the parochial prejudices which are harbored in mediocre minds and which make hatred of others the inevitable commitant of love for one’s own is clearly a task to which a discriminating intelligence must contribute.

However the problem of group relations, as has been previously noted, is created not only by the parochialism of individuals but by the lust and greed of the group itself. The task of persuading the group to sacrifice some of its advantages for the sake of the whole of human society is so difficult that it almost leads to despair. If it will ever be accomplished religio-moral forces, whatever their present impotence, must come to the aid of reason. Prudence alone may prompt nations to a measure of self-sacrificing action, since unqualified self-assertion must lead to mutual destruction. But prudential morality reveals the same defects in inter-group relations which we have noted in simpler social problems. Its ends are always too immediate and its perspective is too narrow. Moral action which lacks some reference to an absolute standard and some ultra-rational dynamic inevitably falls short even of satisfying the social necessities. The prudence of nations in the present state of international relations tends to prompt a few, usually neighboring nations, to compose their differences, but for the sake and at the price of sharpening the conflict with some other alliance of states. The net result of such an enterprise is simply to enlarge the unit of conflict once more without abolishing warfare. The manner in which the triple entente and the triple alliance, both formed with high moral pretensions, helped to make the World War inevitable is a matter of history. More recently there are indications that France and Germany will compose their differences “for the sake of Europe.” Such a reconciliation will hasten the unification of Europe but will also help to raise the specter of intercontinental wars with continental units of conflict. The unification of Asia upon a basis of common resentment against Western imperialism is an almost unavoidable development in international affairs. All these continental alliances are logical enough from any immediate perspective but dangerous from the perspective of the welfare of the whole race. There is no indication that prudential statecraft has the resources to prevent America from inciting the whole of Europe against our economic overlordship of that continent. The increasing feeling aroused by the problem of debt liquidations is symptomatic of the natural resentment which must inevitably issue out of a relation of economic interdependence between a very wealthy and a poor continent. For the settlement of this issue no policy will be wise except one which will appear very foolish to the wise statesmen. A prudent statecraft has made the anxiety of a wealthy creditor the dominant note in American international policy, and envy and fear the chief characteristics in the attitudes of the peoples who must deal with us.

Social intelligence does of course produce a finer fruit than the type of prudence which characterizes the international policy of modern states. There is a whole class of social idealists who understand the economic basis of most international difficulties and who would bring peace to the warring classes and nations by an economic reorganization of modern society. Since modern industrialism and capitalism have materially complicated the ancient feuds between races and classes, it is evident that no amount of moral and spiritual goodwill can produce an ordered and stable international society if the economic roots of war are not clearly discerned and finally eliminated. However the same intelligence which is capable of such discernment easily drifts into a cynicism which discounts all moral and personal factors in social reconstruction and places its hope entirely in a new social strategy. Loyalty to the class is substituted for loyalty to the state, and class conflict is expected to issue in a lasting peace for both classes and nations. Economic determinists show a superior discernment in recognizing that in a civilization which is forced to organize its economic life across national boundaries the conflict of interest between classes does become more significant than the conflict between states, particularly since the latter conflict is due either to economic or to fantastic and imaginary causes. But their very realism betrays them into a cynicism which finally issues in the most romantic and unrealistic dreams. They imagine that social peace will result from the victory of one class over all other classes. They have not taken into account that modern capitalism produces a formidable middle class the interests of which are not identical with the proletarians. Moral and spiritual considerations may conceivably prompt this class to make common cause with the workers in the attainment of ethical social ends, but it will never be annihilated even by the most ruthless class conflict nor will it be persuaded by the logic of economic facts that its interests are altogether identical with those of the workers. Even if one class were able to eliminate all other classes, which is hardly probable, it would require some social grace and moral dynamic to preserve harmony between the various national groups by which this vast mass would be organized and into which it would disintegrate. Even within one national unit any economic class will dissolve into various groups, according to varying and sometimes conflicting interests, as soon as its foes are eliminated. The Russian communists were not long able to preserve their absolute solidarity after their revolution was firmly established. The dominant group soon learned that no amount of ruthlessness was able to prevent the gradual formation of a minority group under Trotzky and Zinoviev. Significantly, the conflict of interest between peasants and industrial workers is the real basis of this schism within communist ranks.

In Europe the qualification of patriotism by class loyalties has in some instances led to a mitigation of national animosities, but it has not destroyed them. On the contrary it has added new hatreds to the old and created a society which is divided not only by vertical but also by horizontal divisions. The Marxian idea of the unification of the world upon the basis of the common interests of the proletarian class must be relegated to the category of millennial dreams. It is based upon an illusion little better than that of nationalism. The nationalists seek to escape the moral problem by delegating the vices of the individual to the group and the Marxians fantastically endow the group with virtues which it does not possess. Religious and moral idealism, preaching goodwill and peace without taking the brutal realities of the modern economic conflict into consideration, is little better, and probably less serviceable than a cynical realism which is blind to everything but the secular facts revealed in modern economic life. The moral futility of such idealism is one of the very roots of such a cynicism. Yet, finally, the problem of social reconstruction cannot be solved without the resources of religious insight and moral goodwill. The economic reorganization of society will not be effected without conflict between those who possess the privileges and those who suffer from the inequalities of modern industrialism. Neither can it be effected without the mutual sacrifice of rights, the mutual forgiveness of sins and a mutual trust going beyond the deserts of any party to the controversy. In England, where economic theory and practice has never been as completely divorced from religious idealism as on the Continent, a gradual transfer political power and social privilege to the ranks of the workers is being made with much less peril of a social convulsion than in any nation of the Continent. Both the possessors of privilege and those who challenge the possession are stubborn in the defense of their advantages and in the championship of their rights; but at least a measure of influence upon the struggle is exercised by spiritual and moral considerations which Continental critics of England identify with the British capacity for compromise but which probably has deeper and more spiritual roots. Meanwhile religious idealism in America is almost completely corrupted by sentimentality and betrayed into social futility because the momentary unification of American society upon the basis of the interests of the middle classes absolves the religious conscience from facing the moral challenge in the social and economic facts of modern society.

Economic determinists are not alone in sharing with an ordinary prudential statecraft in the effort to organize the life of groups by means of the resources of intelligence. The hopes of the more conventional yet socially intelligent people for a new world are involved in the idea of a society or league of nations. Since an inchoate international society created by the new intimacy in which nations live exists in spite of international anarchy, it is reasonable to attempt the creation of more adequate forms and machinery for the crystallization and expression of its collective will, the conciliation of disputes among its members and the closer integration of its life. Moral and spiritual forces are sometimes frustrated merely by the lack of adequate machinery for the application of generally accepted principles to specific situations. There is therefore great need for an intelligent statesmanship which will give the soul of an international society a body, and incarnate its aspirations in the instruments of political order.

From another point of view, however, international society does not yet exist and needs to be created; and the means for its creation are not laws but attitudes, not organization but a type of life. Politically minded people easily suffer from the illusion that laws create morality, that organization creates society. Societies are not created by political mechanism but by attitudes of mutual respect and trust. Where these exist social relations are established and traditions formed. These in turn are gradually codified and given definition and precision by legal enactments. No one now takes the theory seriously that human society was created by a conscious mutual contract between individuals who suddenly realized that they could save themselves in no other way from mutual self-destruction. Society is older than human history and exists wherever individuals establish relations of mutual reverence and trust. The family is usually the beginning of society because here nature aids the imagination and consanguinity creates an atmosphere of mutual trust. The family is enlarged by the fortunes and the needs of war, the resulting clans may amalgamate into larger units through intermarriage of leaders or through other exigencies, and the emerging national or racial group is formed by similar forces. The love and trust which unite a society are no more rational than the hatred and mistrust which divide one society from another. People do not regard each other as morally dependable because reason persuades or experience prompts them to such an attitude. The attitude is determined by natural and instinctive or by ideal and religious forces and, once it is assumed, is inevitably verified; for in an atmosphere of mutual trust human action finally becomes trustworthy and morally dependable. In so far as national and racial groups live in a state of mutual fear and hold life outside of the group in contempt rather than in reverence there is no international society nor can political machinery create it. Only in rare instances are new social traditions created by legal enactments. Political forms and legal measures are usually belated recognitions of previously established social facts and necessities. The problem of group relations in modern society is as difficult as it is because natural causes have operated to make the social units larger and larger while no ideal forces have been strong enough to prompt the group to enter into ethical relations with other groups. If a higher degree of imagination than now seems probable does not inform the life of modern nations only, one further step is possible—the consolidation of continents. In such an eventuality the present League of Nations could easily become the instrument of pan-Europeanism in conflict with other Continents. A society of nations is impossible, in short, without those ultra-rational attitudes which either instinct or religion must create and which in the case of this final venture is beyond the resources of natural instincts—except in the event of a threat from some other planetary community.

If the creation of an international society is a task to which moral and spiritual resources must contribute, its maintenance and development are no less dependent upon the coöperation of spiritual insight with political prudence. Even at best human nature is so imperfect and relations between groups as well as individuals so fruitful in misunderstandings that it is impossible to maintain the mutual trust and confidence which are the basis of society without the spiritual achievement of mutual repentance and forgiveness. In the relation between groups the ability to detect flaws in one’s own and extenuating circumstances in the actions and attitudes of others is at once more necessary and more difficult than in intra-group relations. It is more difficult because the intricacy and long range of the relations, and the inevitable hypocrisy in the pretensions of governments, easily obscure the limitations of one and the virtues and good intentions of the other party of the relationship. It is more necessary because the frictions which fret the relations of national and other groups are much more generally due to mutual guilt than those of individual relations. They develop in a narrow world and in a society of but few members in which a suspected peril may lead to a gesture of defense, the defensive measure be regarded as offensive and in turn prompt an actual attack which will be justified in turn as a defensive measure. Thus fears produce hatreds, hatreds express themselves in ugly grimaces and someone finally strikes the first blow. The World War resulted from a spontaneous combustion of fears and hatreds, and the partial mobilizations, full mobilizations and final declarations of war are so intimately related to each other that impartial historians find it increasingly difficult and irrelevant to decide who was responsible for the actual hostilities. The obvious fact is that every generation of every European state for several centuries had gathered fuel for flames of war. Yet each group declared its absolute innocence and heaped abuse upon the foe. Years after the conflict only a small minority in each of the participating nations has had the imagination to see or the grace to confess the share of its nation in the mutual guilt. Meanwhile ancient feuds are perpetuated because the hypocrisy of the victors is written into solemn treaties and produces a resentment among the vanquished which makes them incapable of any higher sincerity. Issues between nations are so involved that only expert knowledge is able to ascertain the real facts, but the very intricacies of the problems involved make it possible to use the facts for the validation of almost any thesis which national pride may dictate. The real task of persuading groups to encourage forgiveness by repentance and repentance by forgiveness, and thus to overcome rather than perpetuate evil, is a spiritual and a moral one and cannot be accomplished in a completely secular atmosphere. There is little evidence to justify the hope that spiritual and moral forces, as they are now oriented, are prepared to aid in such a task. But their responsibility is obvious; social intelligence may be a partner in the process of conciliation but intelligence cannot bear the burden alone when a disposition to humility and a capacity for mercy is lacking.

Urging the necessity of religious attitudes between social and political groups may seem to be a counsel of perfection when it is remembered that intra-group relations, except in the circle of the family and in small religious fellowships, have never been able to profit by their aid. Society in general has usually contented itself with the expedient of composing social friction and arbitrating dispute by apportioning the relative guilt and innocence of the disputants through a presumably impartial judicatory which enforces its decisions upon the belligerents, however irreconcilable or obstreperous they may be. But the fact is that such a method is both easier and more effective in a society composed of individuals than in a society of groups. In an ordinary national society the impartiality of the court is guaranteed by a society of thousands and even millions of individuals who are supposed not to be biased in favor of one or the other litigants; and the parties to a controversy are therefore more inclined to accept the verdict of a court. Furthermore the society which supports the judicial tribunal is so powerful compared to whatever political or physical strength the litigants possess that it is able to enforce the awards of the latter however recalcitrant the disputants may be. But the society of nations is too small, judged by the number of its member nations, to function with absolute impartiality in any major dispute. Judicial action is therefore immediately less effective. It is to be noted that courts are less serviceable instruments of social conciliation even within nations when they deal with large economic and social groups such as unions and trusts or when the issue involves basic economic problems; and the reason for this is that the parties to a litigation represent so large a part of the total community that the unbiased character of the court is not as readily assumed and ought not be taken for granted. Tradition and social custom usually bias the court in favor of one or the other litigants, generally the one most firmly established in the traditional organization of the society. In the case of nations it is obvious that for some time to come an international court must confine itself mainly to petty disputes among powerful nations and to the real disputes of the petty nations, from whose perspective the large nations may represent an impartial international society.⁠[16] Even at best no formal conciliation can heal wounds such as were made by the World War if nations cannot develop the capacity for repentance and mercy and learn how to restrain both the proud and the vindictive passions which are the natural products of unreflective social life.

Though morally dependable action develops most readily in an atmosphere of mutual trust, it is not to be assumed that either nations or individuals always justify trust by trustworthy action. Faith does not produce conscience automatically. Much of the pacifism now cultivated by socially effective religious forces has the defect that it fails to gauge the stubborn resistance to ideal forces in the predatory nature of national groups. It is difficult to develop moral attitudes sufficiently honest not only to give the bearer of trust the prestige of sincerity but to make the object of trust worthy of its faith. Trust united with selfishness results in moral futility; and when it is based upon illusion and fails to take account of the imperfect social attitudes which it must overcome, it issues in mere sentimentality. It is significant that the idea of the outlawry of war should be espoused particularly in America and find little favor in other nations; for here extraordinary power is united with remarkable political naïvete, so that American idealists find it difficult to appreciate the unsatisfied hungers of other nations or their resentful reaction to our own satiety. If nations cannot be moved to make some sacrifices for the sake of the ideal and to qualify their expansive desires by moral purpose, all efforts to create an international society must finally prove vain. It may be that the secular ambitions of nations are so firmly established in social custom and their unethical attitudes so generally sanctioned by the popular mind that nothing will avail to give their actions even a touch of ethical character. It is difficult enough to subdue and discipline the immediate and anarchic desires which struggle for expression in the soul of the individual; but when they express themselves in the life of groups and are veiled in seeming sanctities even while they achieve new and more diabolical forms they can be subdued only by the most astute intelligence united with a high moral passion. Modern civilization lacks both this intelligence and this moral passion and is in the peril of losing what it has of the latter as it develops the former. Moral idealism which fails to gauge the measure of resistance which its ideals must meet in the confused realities of life or to fashion adequate weapons for its conflict degenerates into mere sentimentality. But a social intelligence which is overwhelmed by the discouraging realities and despairs of the attainment of any ideal sinks into a morally enervating cynicism. Moral leadership in Western society is divided to-day between sentimentalists and cynics who combine to render the prospect of an ethical regeneration of modern life well-nigh hopeless. If men are really to be redeemed from the sins of greed and mutual fears and hatreds by which they make their common life intolerable they need a faith which is not held too cheaply but which is held nevertheless in defiance of every discouragement. The same intelligence which the complexities of modern life demand and create easily prompts not only to the cynicism which declares that “all men are liars” but to a moral ennui which cries, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.”

Benjamin Kidd who understood the need for ultra-rational sanctions in social life better than most sociologists put the problem of modern society in these words: “The great problem with which every progressive society stands confronted is: How to retain the highest operative ultra-rational sanctions for those onerous conditions of life which are essential to its life, and at one and the same time to allow freest play to those intellectual forces which, while tending to come into conflict with such sanctions, contribute nevertheless to raise to the highest degree of social efficiency the whole of its members.”⁠[17]

To develop the wisdom of serpents while they retain the guilelessness of doves is the task which faces the religio-moral forces if they would aid in the moral regeneration of society. It may be that such a task is too difficult for the resources of this or any generation of the immediate future and that painful experience must first prove other strategies inadequate. Meanwhile even the possibility of future usefulness of religion demands the largest possible measure of immediate detachment from the unethical characteristics of modern society. If religion cannot transform society, it must find its social function in criticizing present realities from some ideal perspective and in presenting the ideal without corruption, so that it may sharpen the conscience and strengthen the faith of each generation.