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is a liar.

What is A now?

What is a liar who knows that he is a liar? Or (in terms of "fact") what can you predict of him when he finds out and "comes to himself"? This is precisely what no one knows, least of all the scientific psychologist. And this is precisely the moral fact, an indeterminate sort of fact which does not readily meet the requirements of fact.

In the light of this we can see perhaps why what is now called psychology was numbered a few generations ago among "the moral sciences", and why this phrase was used then to cover all those studies of man, or of human nature, which we now call, less aptly, as it seems to me, "the social sciences". And on the other hand it is doubtless a realization of the indeterminately "moral" quality of the conscious fact that has led the more advanced of scientific psychologists to abandon "psychology" and content themselves with a description of human "behaviour". The new science of behaviourism will treat the man precisely as we treat the sea-anemone, the assumption being that there is as little imagination, or of "trying to be", in one case as in the other.

Finally it may be objected that the naturalistic preoccupation with the variety of human nature tends to blur the distinction of good and bad and to make any man as good as any other. But hardly, I might reply, if morality is to be identified with the intelligent, or critical, life-unless indeed we are to assume that all men are equally intelligent. Yet this will still mean that the intelligence of each is to be judged according to what he in particular is trying to do, according to his particular conception of life, or kind of human nature; and as for the kinds of human nature, none is better than another. Such is my answer. But I must confess that the question of who is the better man does not now strongly appeal to me and I even suspect it to be immoral. Why should one wish to know? I doubt if my reader would care to admit even to himself that it is any part of his interest in morality to learn to which and to how many of his fellows he is entitled to

say, "I am holier than thou." Nor could he feel it less incumbent upon him to be all that he ought to be because he is already better than some of his fellows. It may be very important from a practical standpoint to ask who is the better carpenter, the better physician, the better man of business, but this is not to ask who is morally the better

man.

CHAPTER III

THE MANY MORAL WORLDS

§ 6. Orthodox morality and the moral standard. § 7. The moralities of race, class, and occupation. § 8. Differing moral tastes. §9. The good men of the moral philosophies.

T

§ 6

HE orthodox moralist is commonly to be identified

in social intercourse by the extent to which he talks about standards; in moral philosophy by his extended discussion of "the moral standard". He is the man very frequently to be found among academic men, who refuses to listen to any moral observation of yours without first asking you, "What is your standard ?" who insists that, as the primary condition of morality, "what we need is standards"; who deplores "the decay of standards"; and whose definitive moral condemnation is, "They have no standards." It is not always easy to make out whether this attitude is one of conviction or of scepticism since at times it seems that any standard will do provided it be a standard. But the usual implication is that there is but one standard of morality for all right-thinking men, the nature of which will be obvious to all who sincerely look for it.

This attitude sat attractively enough upon the resident of a small community of a few generations ago, when most communities were small and travel was difficult. In that setting it may be regarded as picturesque. This oldfashioned citizen had little consciousness, or at least little comprehension, of any culture but his own; and from the

point of view of his own experience of the world the distinction between the heathen and the people of God seemed obvious and rational; as deeply grounded in the nature of things as for Plato and Aristotle the superiority of Greek to barbarian, of man to woman, and of freeman to slave. The situation is different to-day. The confluence of peoples and of ideas may very well be a confusion of tongues. Even so we meet face to face, and thought to thought, too many different kinds of men to rest comfortably in the conviction that our own is the right kind. And too many standards are suggested for the integrity of "the moral standard". All, it seems, are moral standards. It is then no longer picturesque to assume a common standard for all "right-thinking men".

§ 7

What we learn, however, from the difference of standard, and precisely from each one's belief in the exclusive validity of his own, is that the differences are moral differences. This is very obviously true of the differences of nation and race. Instinctively we tend to look upon the foreigner as immoral. "An immoral foreigner" seems a natural conjunction of terms. It is not merely that he is strange; an important part of his strangeness is that, to us, he is lacking in moral perception. An elderly and kind-hearted English lady once said to me, quite without arrogance, that in her opinion God had created the British people for the special task of bringing Christianity and salvation to the world-this was said, by the way, in Germany many years before the War. Mr. Punch may classify her with his other old lady who complained that daylight-saving deprived her begonias of the morning sun. But in point of fact few Englishmen, perhaps few Americans, can believe that a Frenchman is quite able to grasp the meaning of "sound morality". Few Anglo-Saxons can attribute full moral perception to a Jew-except as he is allowed to be different from other Jews. The Anglo-Saxon cultivates an ideal of dignity and reserve. To him the Jew

The Jew, it might

seems ingratiating and expansive. be said, seeks to be on terms of personal confidence with his fellows, and thus he desires to please. It hardly occurs to the Anglo-Saxon to ask whether this desire to please may not be the expression of a moral ideal; nor, on the other hand, does he very carefully examine the moral quality of his own cherished attitude of "reserve". He is content to attribute the Semitic attitude to the want of a proper in the last analysis, morally proper-dignity.

The Russians present a nice problem for right-thinking moralists. In a few generations past they have contributed most of what is great to European music and fiction. In the presence of Tschaikowsky, Tourgenieff, Tolstoi, and Dostoievsky, it is not easy to dismiss them as simple barbarians. Yet as depicted by their novelists, even excluding such as Dostoievsky, they are a strange people. At one moment they astonish us by the depth and tenderness of their spiritual insight; at the next by the profundity of their reflections upon life; in the next moment we find them in a whirl of violence and dissipation or else prostrate with a devastating cynicism. They seem to be both more sophisticated than we are and more naïve. Is there a key to their inconsequentiality? To any naturalistic moralist they present a fascinating problem. The orthodox moralist prefers to set them down as sentimentalists and romanticists, i.e., as morally defective.

Yet the Russians present a problem because we are in contact with their literature. There are other races, such as the Chinese, which apparently present none. Their bland indifference to western ideals of progress is easily set down to ignorance and "backwardness". We know indeed,

vaguely and abstractly, that the Chinese is an ancient civilization, which is marked by a coherent social order, by a high development of the fine arts and a marvellous skill in the mechanical arts, and by an elaborate tradition of manners and morals. But only a few are in a position to know this concretely. Hence we cheerfully take up "the white man's burden" of teaching the Chinese our civili

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