Ethical Religion | by William Mackintire Salter
IT is only fair to any one who may take up this book, to say that it is made up of lectures given, for the most part, before the Society for Ethical Culture of Chicago. It is due to my colleagues in the Ethical Movement to say that they are not responsible for the views here expressed, that the book nowise claims to represent the Movement, but simply reflects my own attitude of mind upon the various topics treated. Even in discussing " The Basis of the Ethical Movement," I but give my own interpretation of it. The bond of union between the lecturers, as between the members, of Ethical Societies is not a speculative but a moral one. I must add, however, that my own intellectual indebtedness to Professor Adler is so great that it would be difficult to measure it. Many of the thoughts in this volume probably the best ones are really his thoughts; he has given me, or at least quickened in my mind, ideas that will never go from me, that are a part of my better self. As I have gone over the proof-sheets of these pages, I have felt afresh how deep and constant are my obligations to him.
| Title | Ethical Religion |
| Author | William Mackintire Salter |
| Publisher | Roberts Brothers |
| Year | 1889 |
| Copyright | 1889, William Mackintire Salter |
| Amazon | Ethical Religion |
To Felix Adler, Georg Von Gizycki, And Edwin D. Mead, This Book Is Gratefully And Affectionately Inscribed.
Preface- An occasional criticism which a German translation of some of these lectures1 received, leads me at the outset to disclaim for this volume any scientific pretensions. It is not even a connected series...
- I. Ethical Religion
- THE moral nature is that by which we transcend ourselves and enter into an ideal region. Science, with its methods of observation and experiment, is limited to the world as it is. Ethics is essentiall...
- Ethical Religion. Part 2
- And as the philosophical mistake is to the highest type of mind not only untrue and delusive, but unsatisfactory rather than satisfactory, so is the theological mistake. Theology gathers all our thoug...
- Ethical Religion. Part 3
- But religion may also be defined from the objective side. In this aspect, it is man's relation with what is ultimate and supreme in the world. The truest religion would be that one in which the suprem...
- Ethical Religion. Part 4
- Oh, where are kings and empires now, Of old that went and came ? But holy Church is praying yet, A thousand years the same. Might it not go on praying a thousand years more, and no better result...
- II. The Ideal Element In Morality
- THE current views of morality are low and conventional. Even the churches, which should inspire us with an ideal view of life, talk of mere morality. Morality is thought to be without mystery ;1 wor...
- The Ideal Element In Morality. Part 2
- With these explanations let me proceed to my task. What are more natural and commonplace experiences with us than our wishes and wants ? But if we reflect a moment, it is easy to see that they have an...
- The Ideal Element In Morality. Part 3
- Or take an illustration from business life. What honorable man does not place truth before success in business ? Who does not feel that he ought to be truthful, whether it will be advantageous to him ...
- The Ideal Element In Morality. Part 4
- John Stuart Mill eloquently protested that he would rather go to hell than do violence to his moral nature by calling a Being good who bore no traces of the character designated by that word.1 A passa...
- The Ideal Element In Morality. Part 5
- Does ethics, then, give us no great thoughts ? That man can respond to a universal good ; that he can connect himself with the fortune of those whom he has never seen nor shall see; that he can bless ...
- III. What Is A Moral Action ?
- WHAT is it that gives a moral quality to an action, that lends it moral worth ? I do not mean to contrast moral with immoral actions, but what of the multitude of our every-day actions against which ...
- What Is A Moral Action ?. Part 2
- Why ? Because the other attitude would practically deny the significance of our intellectual being; because we feel that if the truth is grand, the learning and so knowing the truth is still grander. ...
- What Is A Moral Action ?. Part 3
- And a moral action, further, must have no motive of self-interest behind it. This is not saying that many interested actions are not natural, proper, and necessary, as the world now is, but only that ...
- What Is A Moral Action ?. Part 4
- Thou, O my Jesus I thou didst me. Upon the cross embrace ; For me didst bear the nails and spear. And manifold disgrace, And griefs and torments numberless, And sweat of agony, E 'en death ...
- IV. Is There A Higher Law?
- WE are constantly pronouncing judgments upon the worth of actions. Some satisfy us and others do not; some are right and some are wrong. We do not mean by this that they are, or are not, of advantage ...
- Is There A Higher Law?. Part 2
- Granted, however, that there is a right independent of our changing wishes and opinions, how, it may be asked, can the right be spoken of as a law ? Laws we know of in Nature, or in connection with th...
- Is There A Higher Law?. Part 3
- Socrates knew that he was very much hated by many persons; that if condemned it would be owing to the malice and the slander of the multitude. Democracy does not mean any ceasing of the responsibility...
- Is There A Higher Law?. Part 4
- That this law is no mere fancy, but a reality and a power in human history, is shown in this, that nothing which is not in accordance with it can last. I have not defined this law; I have taken for ...
- Is There A Higher Law?. Part 5
- What are the outrages now and then cropping out in Ireland, the assassinations now and then taking place in Russia, but the furies of an avenging justice ? Sydney Smith said that at the mention of Ire...
- Is There A Higher Law?. Part 6
- For the higher law is not a beautiful speculation to indulge in ; it calls for a higher life. If we win a thought in advance of the common practice of the day, it is a summons to us to lift our life t...
- V. Is There Anything Absolute About Morality?
- IT is sometimes thought that morality is entirely a matter of changing custom and opinion. One person holds one thing to be right, another another, and each, it is said, has an equal right to his opin...
- Is There Anything Absolute About Morality?. Part 2
- The absoluteness of morality does not mean that man has always had a conscience, or that he has always approved the highest things; if it did, there would be nothing absolute about morality. Man has g...
- Is There Anything Absolute About Morality?. Part 3
- Hence I doubt if any of these instances from the history of religion are really contrary to the opinion I have advanced, that when a man sincerely asks, What ought I to do, irrespective of the fear or...
- Is There Anything Absolute About Morality?. Part 4
- And I should say that man's glory is that he has a will of his own, and yet can make that will conform with the requirements of a perfect law. That law stretches beyond all that is written down in hum...
- VI. Darwinism In Ethics
- IT is the high and noble thing to do what is good and right of our own accord. We do not reach the heights of morality till goodness is the free choice of the soul. I believe that man, with his wonder...
- Darwinism In Ethics. Part 2
- Look at the matter on a wider scale. Consider men not as individuals, but as societies. If we think that natural selection favors simply the strongest in body or mind, consider the history of the fami...
- Darwinism In Ethics. Part 3
- All this holds good equally of civilized peoples. The same things that lifted the social savage above the unsocial savage or animal, and gave him the preeminence, lift the civilized man out of the ran...
- Darwinism In Ethics. Part 4
- This is my interpretation of the ethics of Darwin. Darwin does not give us a theory of ethics, or rather, so far as he does, I should have something to say in criticism of it; but he does a greater ...
- VII. The Social Ideal
- IT is sometimes said that all morality involves social relations. There can be no question that a large part of it does. What is justice but a certain kind of conduct or relation between man and man ?...
- The Social Ideal. Part 2
- The form of the social ideal is then that of equality. Not, indeed, similarity of place and function for every one ; not that all should do the same work or get the same returns for their work; but si...
- The Social Ideal. Part 3
- The principle of the social ideal holds, further, in the relations between the officers of any particular State and its citizens. The time is gone by when any king or emperor can lay claim to the unre...
- The Social Ideal. Part 4
- But the social ideal has closer applications to us. We must all live, but we have not all equal control of the means of subsistence, nor equal opportunities to create them. We have not all first-hand ...
- The Social Ideal. Part 5
- The solution of the industrial problem, the abolition of all poverty that is not in itself dishonorable, the lifting of the laboring classes to the full dignity and worth of freemen, the granting to...
- VIII. The Rights Of Labor
- NOTHING is plainer at the present day than that the feelings of men are strongly stirred on the Labor question. In the discussion of it there is apt to be more heat than light. Those who do not range ...
- The Rights Of Labor. Part 2
- But because there are limits beyond which the returns to the workingmen cannot go, it by no means follows that the ordinary returns to workingmen at present are fair and just. What determines the rate...
- The Rights Of Labor. Part 3
- I have stated my conviction that labor as a rule does not get a fair share of the wealth it helps to produce; further, why this must be the case so long as Nature endows mankind more lavishly with mus...
- The Rights Of Labor. Part 4
- What can be done ? First, we can hold fast to our thoughts as to how labor should be treated. This of itself is a great thing, not to succumb, not to give up our ideal, because the facts are the oth...
- IX. Personal Morality
- THERE is no more wonderful or more moving thought than that of personal responsibility. It seems to go straight to the centre of our being, which is not the mind or the conscience or the heart, but th...
- Personal Morality. Part 2
- Once in a while we need to turn back on these busy lives of ours, and ask how far this aim is really regulative of them. Are the actions we are doing, the sort of lives we are leading, tending toward ...
- Personal Morality. Part 3
- And, oh, if Nature sinks, as oft she may, 'Neath long-lived pressure of obscure distress, Still to he strenuous for the bright reward, Still in the soul to admit of no decay, Brook no continuance of...
- Personal Morality. Part 4
- The field of our thoughts is a wide one; the field of our actions is ordinarily a narrow one. Ethics covers both. It asks that we have just thoughts, true thoughts, everywhere; it gives the ideal also...
- Personal Morality. Part 5
- Many persons are oppressed with the littleness of their lives ; they would like to be doing great things, and the petty duties of each day take up all their time. They do not recollect that faithfulne...
- X. On Some Features Of The Ethics Of Jesus
- THERE have been noble-minded men, like Schiller and John Stuart Mill, who have been offended with one aspect of the teaching of Jesus. The charge is in substance that his teaching is sometimes mercena...
- On Some Features Of The Ethics Of Jesus. Part 2
- Nor do the new rules of charity now happily making their way in our midst contradict the precepts of Jesus. A business charity, in one sense of the word, would not be charity at all. To give help to n...
- On Some Features Of The Ethics Of Jesus. Part 3
- I turn now to some features of the ethics of Jesus having such clear and positive merit that little objection is likely to be made to them. I essay no comparison of him with Socrates or Sakya-mouni or...
- On Some Features Of The Ethics Of Jesus. Part 4
- One reformer always honors another, one prophet always feels that he belongs to a succession. Each knows well that it is not this or that particular cause, as such, he is serving, but these as forms o...
- On Some Features Of The Ethics Of Jesus. Part 5
- In sober truth, I believe that all this is but the as-sertion of the brute instincts in us, seeking indeed to give a specious justification to themselves, taking on the airs of science and human reaso...
- XI. Does The Ethics Of Jesus Satisfy The Needs Of Our Time?
- IT is impossible to forget the moral services which Judaism and Christianity have rendered to the world. To seek to relax the obligations which the old religions have made us feel, to lower or anywise...
- Does The Ethics Of Jesus Satisfy The Needs Of Our Time?. Part 2
- A new seriousness is needed in all our thinking. Men play with phrases, and think if they can use the same words, differences of thought need not seriously concern them. They build enormous conclusion...
- Does The Ethics Of Jesus Satisfy The Needs Of Our Time?. Part 3
- Accordingly nothing is so lightly and even apologetically treated by liberal Christian critics and teachers as this primitive and always, at least, professed Christian belief. Yet it is no accident, n...
- Does The Ethics Of Jesus Satisfy The Needs Of Our Time?. Part 4
- The State itself must also advance. It must assume new duties,new, that is, not to its mission, but to its past performance. Freedom is good, but it must be universal; and if my freedom tends to the ...
- Does The Ethics Of Jesus Satisfy The Needs Of Our Time?. Part 5
- A new ethics of industry must arise; or, I might almost say, ethics must be now applied for the first time in this department of human activity. What does the ethics of Jesus give us in this direction...
- Does The Ethics Of Jesus Satisfy The Needs Of Our Time?. Part 6
- One hour of justice, said an old Mahometan precept, is worth seventy years of prayer. Let us say the same of charity. All these hospitals and homes and asylums while in one way an honor, are in ...
- Does The Ethics Of Jesus Satisfy The Needs Of Our Time?. Part 7
- It is no mere earthly paradise that is hinted at in these lines, though to strive for a nobler social order on the earth as a proximate form of the perfect is necessary, but an end and outcome of huma...
- XII. Good Friday From A Modern Standpoint
- GOOD FRIDAY commemorates one of the most pathetic events in history. The orthodox idea of the death of Jesus takes us back to the dim beginnings of Hebrew history, when Jahveh, the national god, was c...
- Good Friday From A Modern Standpoint. Part 2
- Such were the causes that led to the event which. Good Friday celebrates, so far as they can be gathered into a few words. Jesus died the victim of a great hope for his people and for the world. He ...
- Good Friday From A Modern Standpoint. Part 3
- Where shall we read of a more tragic, a more noble death than this ? Where is one that more stirs our mingled feelings of indignation and pity and admiration ? Do we wonder that by his death Jesus has...
- Good Friday From A Modern Standpoint. Part 4
- Prune thou thy words, the thoughts control That o'er thee swell and throng; They will condense within thy soul, And change to purpose strong. But he who lets his feelings run In soft, luxurious ...
- XIII. The Success And The Failure Of Protestantism
- WHAT is the significance of Protestantism ? In what respect has it been successful; in what has it failed ? Protestantism was successful in the first place, in that it was a break with the Catholic...
- The Success And The Failure Of Protestantism. Part 2
- This was the first success of Protestantism. A second is closely related to it, and for this too we are indebted to Luther himself. Goodness had become an external, formal thing in the Catholic Church...
- The Success And The Failure Of Protestantism. Part 3
- As a fourth success of Protestantism, and as a result of this spirit of freedom working in connection with the tendencies of modern thought, not only the old church but the old religion is gradually b...
- The Success And The Failure Of Protestantism. Part 4
- Another failure of Protestantism is that it has not given us any new faith, such as the world needs. Protestants have for the most part simply clung to certain remnants or shreds of an old garment; th...
- The Success And The Failure Of Protestantism. Part 5
- It is not a pleasant task to quote Luther's language against the peasants after they were once fairly started on their violent career. It is not the man but the churchman who speaks. His theory was, ...
- XIV. Why Unitarianism Fails To Satisfy
- UNITARIANS are not dogmatists ; they are perhaps as a class exceptionally humane and public-spirited, given to good works as freely without as within ecclesiastical lines ; they have little other-worl...
- Why Unitarianism Fails To Satisfy. Part 2
- The inequalities wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance of our social condition must be felt to be the allotment of Providence, a wise provision for the greatest happiness of all, before the...
- Why Unitarianism Fails To Satisfy. Part 3
- I must say I see little of this spirit among Unitarians : there is much laudable effort to make things a little better, but no surrender to principle, no inclination to take life in hand and count it ...
- Why Unitarianism Fails To Satisfy. Part 4
- Have you heard the Golden City Mentioned in the legends old ? Everlasting light shines o'er it, Wondrous tales of it are told. Only righteous men and women Dwell within its gleaming wall; Wron...
- Why Unitarianism Fails To Satisfy. Part 5
- There is a similar lack of seriousness in the Unitarian attitude toward Jesus. As they pray without any deep belief in prayer, so they own Jesus as Master with scant sense of that supreme devotion, th...
- XV. The Basis Of The Ethical Movement
- THE Ethical movement has a serious aim. It is not a literary movement; nor is it primarily a philosophical movement. It does not aim at culture, in the ordinary sense of the word. A wider knowledge of...
- The Basis Of The Ethical Movement. Part 2
- Yes, for myself, not merely the rationalized forms of Christianity and Judaism, but religion itself, as it is popularly understood, does not give an absolutely sure basis on which to stand. Religion, ...
- The Basis Of The Ethical Movement. Part 3
- Here, then, is to my mind the true basis of our movement,not the old religions; not religion itself, in the popular understanding of that term; not agnosticism, though as matter of fact some of us ma...
- The Basis Of The Ethical Movement. Part 4
- 1 Gladstone, Vatican Decrees, 4. I know the churches speak sometimes of mere morality, and ask if that can save a man. I answer readily that a surface, mechanical morality, no matter by wh...
- XVI. The Supremacy Of Ethics
- WHEN all else that the religious world holds dear falls or becomes uncertain, confidence in duty may remain unshaken. One may doubt all the articles of the Christian creed, and have much pain in doing...
- The Supremacy Of Ethics. Part 2
- And what an aim does ethics give to man ! With what solemnity does it invest our life ! We are here to lift ourselves to the measure of perfect goodness; society exists to lift itself to perfect justi...
- The Supremacy Of Ethics. Part 3
- It is thus that the moral sentiment gives a great peace to the soul. Things often seem so bad about us that we are tempted to think evil cleaves to the nature of things. With all the boasted progress ...
- XVII. The True Basis Of Religious Union
- I HAVE had the privilege of expressing myself with the utmost freedom in the preceding pages. It is, however, one thing to express one's views freely, and another to propose them as a basis of religio...
- The True Basis Of Religious Union. Part 2
- I am aware that the realization of such an ideal involves a great change in the habits and sentiments of men. It argues a new object of central interest, a new enthusiasm, a new magnanimity blended wi...
- The True Basis Of Religious Union. Part 3
- Suppose that the theistic members of the body should say, Our theism has become so precious to us that we cannot hold out any longer the fraternal hand to materialists or agnostics. Suppose that agn...
