As a way of approach to the subject of this lecture I want to sum up briefly the line of argument which I have followed and the main conclusions at which I have arrived.

I have been concerned with the nature and knowledge of our duties and obligations, the principle according to which they are determined and the way in which we discover them—whether they are regarded as duties to obey rules or to realise ends. Accordingly, I have been dealing mainly with the outward and visible side of morality, the sorts of acts which are right and the kinds of ends which are good, and the patterns of behaviour, the institutions and ways of life in which they find expression. But morality has also a personal or inner and spiritual side, a side of motives and attitudes of mind, of sentiments and goodwill; and this inner side is not less important, for without it there would be no morality. It provides the dynamic and drive without which the outward forms, the rules and patterns of behaviour, would remain a dead letter. Moreover, if goodwill and social sentiments, mutual trust and sympathy, the reconciling and forgiving spirit, are present, they provide an atmosphere in which it is easier to discover our duties. They will even make smoother the working of even imperfect rules and patterns of behaviour. They will make the right response more likely and without them no response has moral value. Nevertheless, by themselves they are not sufficient; for the moral life needs direction as well as drive. The inner life must find expression in outward and visible forms; for goodwill, however important, does not tell us what we ought to do, as we can see in the difficulty which sincere and honest men sometimes have in discovering what their duty is, and in the ineptitude with which people of goodwill at times do the wrong thing from the best of motives, or even the right thing at the wrong time, or in the wrong way. But though I recognise that the moral life has two inseparable and equally important aspects, my main concern has been with the outward aspect, for it is the one which has to be primarily considered in dealing with the nature and knowledge of our duties and obligations; and it is the one to which the anthropological evidence is specially relevant.

In my treatment of it, I have assumed, and I have tried to defend the assumption, that the main structure of the moral life, the nature of the moral ideal and the grounds of moral obligation are in principle the same everywhere and for all men; and that, therefore, only a theory which will account for the moral judgements of all men can be regarded as a satisfactory ethical theory. But I have contended that, if there is this identity of principle underlying the moral judgements of all men, it must be compatible with a great diversity in the sorts of acts which are regarded as right, and in the states of affairs which are regarded as good, by different peoples.

I have approached the subject through the study of the moralities of contemporary primitive peoples, partly in order to show the wide range of facts for which ethical theory has to account; partly because the contrasts between the ways of life and the moral judgements of different peoples help to bring into clearer relief the distinction between those features of the moral life which are absolute and unconditional and those which are relative to certain cultural conditions or sets of circumstances; and partly because I believe that some characteristics which are common to all morality are more obvious in the simpler conditions of primitive life, just as others become clearer in the larger and more complex advanced societies.

I have held that the way of life of every people known to history or anthropology is an attempt to embody a moral ideal, the elements of which are determined by the desires and dispositions of human nature, and the structure of which is determined by the nature of man as rational and self-conscious and by the conditions of co-operation between individuals which are necessary for the realisation of selves in their unitary character. This unitary character of the self is both lateral and longitudinal, i.e. the self is aware of itself as the unitary centre of many desires at one moment and also as a unity persisting through many desires from moment to moment. Because the self has this unitary character, the system of activities or way of life which it requires for its expression and satisfaction must have a corresponding unitary pattern; and because it is a member of a community and has social desires and dispositions, this way of life must be one in which different people co-operate. The demand which this way of life makes on the individual is the source of moral obligation. It presents itself to him as an ought both negatively and positively: negatively, it demands the suppression of desires or systems of desires whose expression would be inconsistent with its pattern; positively, it demands the doing of that which the pattern requires, however difficult or distasteful that may be.

This state of affairs makes possible two different forms of conflict or tension within the self. On the one hand, the individual may be in no doubt as to what the way of life which stands for the good of the self in its unitary character demands; but the demand which it makes may be opposed to his inclinations and desires: the individual knows, or believes he knows, what he ought to do, but he finds it difficult to do it. Here we have one form of moral conflict, the conflict between duty and inclination, between reason and passion, between ‘the law of the mind’ and ‘the law of the members’. On the other hand, there may be doubt as to what the pattern requires, or even whether the pattern itself may not require modification: the individual does not know what his duty is. Moral perplexity of this kind may arise either because of the complexity of the situation with which the moral agent is faced, or because he is incompletely rational: his personality may be insufficiently integrated and the way of life which is its counterpart internally inconsistent, or the pattern of the latter may make inadequate provision for the expression of some aspects of his nature. In some cases powerful systems of desires, the expression of major interests, in each of which the self is deeply implicated, may be in conflict. This gives rise to dividedness of mind and clashes of deep-seated loyalties, which result in major unhappiness and provide the materials of tragedy. With conflicts of the first kind we have not been directly concerned; our main theme has been the problems and perplexities to which the second kind gives rise and the principle on which they can be resolved.

Though the general form of the moral ideal is common to all men and all moralities, its detailed embodiments, the results of the co-operative efforts of different peoples in conceiving and realising it, vary enormously; and it is these detailed embodiments in patterns of behaviour and systems of institutions which provide the operative ideals in the light of which people discover their particular duties and obligations. The evidence which I have submitted suggests that if we isolate an act or a rule, an experience or a state of affairs, from its context in such a way of life, we take away from it the characteristics which are the grounds of its rightness or goodness, i.e. that no act or sort of act or state of affairs contains the grounds of its rightness or goodness within itself. For we have not found unanimity among different peoples as to the sort of acts which they regard as right, or the states of affairs which they regard as good, as there should be if their rightness or goodness belonged to them in their own right and were apprehended by direct insight. The only exception to this is moral goodness which, as we have seen, has a peculiar character in virtue of which it cannot exist by itself. It would seem, then, that when we try to pass a moral or final judgement of value on an act or state of affairs, we have to look beyond itself. How far beyond it have we to go?—to motives, to consequences, to context, or what? The answer, which the evidence with which we have been concerned suggests, is that we have to consider it in the context of a way of life as a whole; but it is that way of life as it appears to, or is grasped by, the individual who lives it and passes the judgement.

The way of life of the society into which the individual is born has been built up over a long period of time, in the course of which its parts have tended to become mutually adjusted, but the adjustment has followed different lines among different peoples. In the case of a particular people, the resulting pattern may be narrow and circumscribed or wide and comprehensive, its parts may be more or less completely harmonised, its provision for the needs of human nature more or less adequate. But, whatever its character, the way of life of his people helps to mould the individual and to determine his interests and ideal. Different individuals may enter into its spirit to differing extents. One may find it on the whole good mainly or even merely because he has been brought up under it and has been formed by it. Another may more or less reflectively grasp its pattern and consciously make it his own ideal; while yet another may build up for himself, on the basis of it, an ideal which may involve a more or less radical modification of it. But unless an individual accepts it as on the whole good, in the sense that he believes that, if all the members of his society were to live according to it, the resulting state of affairs or form of life would be on the whole satisfactory, he will feel no moral obligation to comply with its requirements. He may consider it prudent to do so from fear of punishment or for other reasons, but his conformity will not be moral. It is in the light of such a way of life that final judgements of value are passed. Those acts which fit into its structure are regarded as right; and those which are inconsistent with it, however powerful may be the desire to perform them, are regarded as wrong. Compliance with its requirements from good motives constitutes moral goodness.

I have, therefore, argued that the good life is not good in spots or patches to which the rest of it is mere means, but throughout; that the moral ideal is not a distant end to be reached sometime in the future, but a way of life which can be progressively realised and may be being realised here and now; that the duties in connection with what are called the lower goods are not lower or less urgent duties; that, in fact, morality is not concerned with a separate sphere of activities; that moral duties are not a separate class of duties, duties to be morally good or to improve character as such. Character is improved and moral goodness realised by doing whatever is right in the circumstances, whether it be the humblest domestic duty or ruling an empire, whether it be removing the rubbish that disfigures a street or ‘the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge’. I have thus tried to break down the separation between moral duties, on the one hand, and social, economic, political, religious or legal duties, on the other. In all spheres of life, duties arise and they are moral duties. In all of them the moral judgement is the final judgement. Moral considerations are not restricted to a limited sphere or to the application of a limited set of rules—rules which are usually regarded as mainly negative, kept in a special compartment, and acknowledged in general terms. Morality is not concerned merely with the impartial administration of the law, but also with the justice of the law which is administered; not just with keeping promises or contracts, but also with the kind of promises which should be made and the kind of contracts which should be entered into; not merely with telling the truth, but also with intellectual integrity in weighing evidence and reporting facts; not just with making a return for services rendered, but also with what is a fair return for what services, and so on. It is mainly with regard to the latter of these alternatives that we find differences of opinion between different peoples, whereas most ethical theorists concern themselves mainly with the former which do not normally profoundly stir or deeply perplex the moral agent, and which remain vague and general until they are articulated in a way of life in which they are brought into relation with the latter. It seems to me that the same principle of moral judgement applies to both, and that, in trying to formulate it, we must not neglect the more concrete, complex and controversial issues.

I have also argued that the way in which we get knowledge of the moral characteristics of things, whether of rightness or goodness, resembles the tentative groping, and the growing vision, of the natural or empirical scientist rather than the crystal-clear intuitions and the incorrigible judgements of the mathematician.

Now these general considerations, and the formal structure of the moral life which I have described, apply to all men and all morality, and they are compatible with the enormous diversity which we find in the operative ideals or ways of life, and, therefore, in the particular judgements of rightness and goodness, of different peoples. Is there, then, any test which we can apply to discover whether one way of life is better than another, whether one operative ideal is a more adequate expression of the formal ideal which they are all attempts to embody? In particular, can we discover any evidence of progress in this respect from the more primitive to the more advanced societies? And, if so, along what lines does it proceed and what criterion of progress does it imply?

If my account of the moral life has been in principle sound, moral goodness consists in loyalty to the recognised or operative ideal. This is possible for every man in every society, whatever its stage of development or way of life may be. Accordingly, with one possible exception which I shall mention later, there has been no evolution or development of morality from the most primitive men known to history or anthropology to the most civilised men that we know, in the sense that the meaning of moral goodness has changed or that it is more possible at one stage or in one society than in another. It is difficult to say whether there has been any progress in moral goodness, in the sense that more advanced people are morally better, i.e. live up to their own ideals more consistently, than primitives; but there is no reason to believe that this is so. To discover how far different peoples live up to their own ideals would entail an enquiry which has not yet been conducted; and, no doubt, there are great differences between different primitive and between different civilised peoples in this respect. It is true that the higher the recognised ideal, the greater the demands it makes on those who acknowledge it, the more difficult it is to live up to its requirements, and, therefore, the less likely it is that people as a whole will do so consistently. It is also true that among some peoples there are more stimuli to moral steadfastness, which make it more likely that they will conform to the requirements of their recognised ideal; but mere conformity is no guarantee of moral goodness. It may also be thought that the nature of the operative ideal of a society may be some indication of the moral goodness of its members, because one condition of developing the insight necessary to recognise a higher ideal is that men should conscientiously perform the duties which they already recognise; while persistent failure to live up to an ideal tends to discredit the ideal itself, so that it ceases to be recognised as such; but, as we shall see, other conditions are also necessary for the recognition of higher ideals. Taking everything into consideration, then, there is little evidence to suggest that the more advanced peoples are either morally better or morally worse than the more primitive.1

Accordingly, if we are to find development or progress at all, we must look for it in the nature of the ideals entertained rather than in the consistency and conscientiousness with which they are realised, that is, in moral enlightenment rather than in moral goodness. It seems to me essential, for our understanding of both morality and progress, that we should distinguish clearly between moral goodness and moral enlightenment. Moral goodness consists in loyalty to the operative or recognised ideal, whatever the content of this ideal may be; and, therefore, it does not change. But the content of the ideal itself changes. It may be more or less enlightened, richer and more comprehensive or narrower and more circumscribed, its parts more or less consistent, its provision for the needs of human nature more or less adequate. Therefore the acts in which moral goodness manifests itself and the ends which the morally good man pursues change. We have seen that the general form of every operative ideal is a way of life in which different people co-operate to realise the ends which are dictated by their nature as self-conscious persons. I think we may say that the development which has taken place in the conception of the moral ideal consists in an increasingly adequate grasp of what is implied in such co-operation, of what it means to be a person and of what is involved in membership of a co-operative community of persons.

This development has been mainly along two closely interconnected lines. The one has been an extension of the number of those who are included in the community to which the way of life and the rights and duties which it involves apply, an extension which continued till all men are, at least in theory, included in its scope, and, therefore, entitled to be treated as persons. The other has been a changing conception of the nature of personality and of the relations between persons which are necessary to express this nature, and provide scope for its development. Progress in enlightenment has not consisted merely, as is sometimes suggested, in giving a different answer to the question ‘Who is my neighbour?’ but also in a different conception of what is meant by neighbourliness, not merely in an extension of the group who are believed to share in the common humanity, but also in a deepening of the significance of what is involved in the common humanity. Indeed, it may well be that a change in the way of life which is shared by a group is a condition of the extension of the group who share in it, and especially of its extension to include all mankind. There are peoples whose ways of life and scales of value have to be remodelled to make such extension possible.

Consider, e.g., the way of life of the Crow Indians.2 Their way of life is based on principles of mutual helpfulness and friendly co-operation between the members of the in-group. Quarrelling and fighting between them are strongly disapproved. But the whole structure of the group-life, the relations between individuals within it, the constitution of its societies, its scale of values, and even the content of its religious visions, were dominated by the military spirit and the pre-eminence of the military virtues. This assumed that members of other groups were to be treated as enemies, and the presence of such enemies was a presupposition of the whole structure of the way of life. Extend the principles of friendly co-operation which prevailed between members of the in-group to their relations to their neighbours and the whole pattern and scale of values of their way of life will collapse, as in fact happened when the United States government forbade them to make war on their neighbours.

Here, then, we seem to have one test which can be applied to different ways of life to discover their adequacy. Any way of life whose general structure or scale of value does not admit of being extended to mankind as a whole, without denying the common humanity of some men and their right to be treated as persons, must be regarded as unsatisfactory; and the more remodelling it needs to make this extension possible, the more unsatisfactory it is.

There are other ways also in which development in enlightenment has taken place, and these lines of development condition, and are conditioned by, the extension of the size of the group and the deepening grasp of the nature of personality. For a way of life does not grow up in a vacuum. It is developed in interaction with, and in response to, a natural and supernatural environment, and the form which it takes is partly determined by the beliefs entertained about that environment. It is, therefore, liable to be modified not only by the degree of insight into the nature of personality, but also by the extent and accuracy of the knowledge available about the nature of the environment in which life is lived. Accordingly, the development of the conception of the moral ideal is largely the result of increasingly accurate knowledge of matters of fact about nature and man and supernature. And the development in one of these lines influences, and is influenced by, development in the others. For the way of life which is the embodiment of the ideal is a relatively integrated whole in which the different aspects mutually modify, as well as support, one another. We may also get progress in the degree of integration of the way of life, in the adjustment of the institutions which in their interrelation constitute it. Here the line of advance has been from a way of life whose unity consists merely in the functional interdependence of its parts towards one which is rationally coherent. Without such integration, clashes of interests and conflicts of loyalties are bound to occur and to give rise to frustration, un-happiness, and inefficiency in action. Similar results follow from failure in comprehensiveness, i.e. failure to make provision for some of the major needs of human nature, and, in this respect too, progress is possible. In the main, however, it would seem that the way in which progress in moral enlightenment or the conception of the moral ideal has come about is not so much through the development of new powers of moral insight as through the emergence of conditions in which such powers of moral insight as men have can function effectively.

Bearing in mind these general considerations, and in particular the interaction of the different lines of development, let us look a little more in detail at some of the lines of progress in moral enlightenment, see the conditions under which they take place, the principle or principles, if any, on which they proceed, the direction in which they tend, and their significance for further progress.

The increase in the size of the group to whom moral considerations apply seems to come about in part, at least, through peaceful contacts in intertribal trade and commerce, and, perhaps even more, through the conquest of one group by another. Not that either commerce or conquest produces greater moral insight, but they provide opportunities for contact and co-operation, and, wherever such opportunities exist, there is a tendency for men to come to recognise one another as persons, and to take an interest in one another's welfare. In many forms of contact, especially contact which is brought about forcibly through conquest, there are many forces which militate against such recognition, forces which lead to such institutions as slavery or a caste system, under which some individuals tend to be treated as things rather than persons. But the greatest barrier to the mutual recognition of people as persons is ignorance. This arouses fear and suspicion which lead, at worst, to hostility and, at best, to indifference to one another's interests. When this barrier is removed through contact, especially contact which involves co-operation, even if it is in the first instance forcibly brought about, opportunities are created for man's natural interest in man to assert itself.3 Co-operation tends to be found good, social sentiments develop, and man's natural interest in the welfare of others finds expression.

As I said earlier, it seems to me unnecessary to ask, and impossible to answer, the question, which comes first, co-operation between people, their interest in one another's welfare, or their recognition of one another as persons? All three develop together and mutually condition one another. One cannot develop far unless the others are also present in some measure.

In the process of growing moral enlightenment, direct experience of what is good seems to come first; and, in most cases at least, such experience is a condition of a state of affairs being recognised as good. Favourable circumstances may produce a state of affairs, a form of life or a kind of relationship between individuals, which is found to be good. Even when this happens, the state of affairs may be accepted as a matter of course, and no consideration may be given to the conditions which produced it and are necessary to maintain it. When circumstances change and the form of life disappears, men may regret the loss and yet do nothing about the matter. On the other hand, the disappointment due to the partial or total loss of what was regarded as good may lead men to make an effort to retain it. This, in turn, leads to some consideration of the conditions which made it possible, and to an attempt to produce them, and it may be to extend the sphere of their application. Even so, there may be little reflective analysis of the principles involved in the form of life, and the conditions required for its realisation may not be disentangled from the concrete circumstances in which they were first given. Reflective analysis, conscious planning of a form of life, deliberate attempts at extending the application of principles, are much later products than the direct experience in which a form of life is found good. Rational justification of a way of life which is essentially rational belongs, like the flight of Minerva's owl, to the evening twilight of reflection rather than to the dawn of direct experience. But the reflective analysis reveals only the principles which were present in the experience from the outset.

The other great barrier to the recognition of other people as persons and to paying regard to their welfare, is lack of imagination, of capacity to put oneself in the other person's place, to realise what he is thinking and feeling. Among all peoples much selfishness is the result of thoughtlessness, of lack of imagination. In breaking down this barrier, the example and the teaching of specially gifted individuals, who are more sensitive and sympathetic to the feelings of others, and have more imaginative appreciation of their position and point of view, play an important part. The great moral teacher is he who opens our eyes so that we come to recognise what we had hitherto been unable to see for ourselves, but which we acknowledge when he points it out. He makes us feel that he knows us better than we know ourselves. But if the insight of our best moments and the impulses to which it gives rise are to survive, they must be embodied in customs and institutions, and become part of our way of life. These act as reminders to us in the days of gloom of the vision of the hours of insight; and they provide stimuli to moral steadfastness when the vision is dim and the impulse to well-doing weak.

Once the moral implications of men's common humanity are recognised and pointed out and acted on by some individuals, others will come to acknowledge what they might have failed to realise if left to themselves. Thus a social conscience comes to be developed; and, if it is embodied in institutions and organisations, even those who have little inclination to respect the common humanity or the rights of others cannot help, from time to time, being reminded of them and even being troubled by their own neglect of them. A social conscience, whether in relation to the members of one's own or another society, is just the inability to be content, however adequately one's own needs, material and spiritual, are provided for, as long as other people are without the conditions necessary for their welfare or deprived of opportunities to develop their personalities. And among the conditions which favour the development of such a conscience, the most important are contact and a vivid imagination.

How these conditions operate we see, e.g., in the way in which the results of the air-raids brought home to many people who ought to have been, but apparently were not, aware of them, the conditions under which some of their fellow-citizens in our large towns were living, and the stimulus which this gave to the formation of a social conscience with regard to such matters; or in the way in which, in the instruction of the young, we try to bring home to them the evils of cruelty to men or animals: we try to get them to realise imaginatively how their victims are feeling. We see the same principle at work in the way in which the intimate contacts between men of different classes and sections of the community, both in the armed and civilian services, during the war produced in many minds a new conception of the requirements of social justice. But such insights are apt to be intermittent and the stirrings of the social conscience to which they give rise tend quickly to subside, unless they are embodied in institutions and social structures which, by their perpetual suggestion, help to form the habits of thinking and feeling of the individual.4 The primitive is apt to regard many of the causes of his frustration and unhappiness as inevitable; and this applies not only to natural conditions, but to many aspects of his social environment. He sees no alternative to them; and he does not think anyone is responsible for them. So the idea that it might be possible to change them does not occur to him. Accordingly, his ideal tends to be to change himself into line with them, an ideal of self-discipline and resignation to the nature of things. And this attitude is strengthened when he regards the nature of things as the expression of a superhuman purpose; and especially when he believes that this purpose is good, though he may be unable to understand how it is so. But, with growing knowledge comes an increasing sense of power over his environment, and his ideal tends to become one of mastering and controlling and changing it so as to bring it into line with his desires. Thus, there emerges a new and more conscious attitude to change. The idea of progress takes shape, and men try not only to master and control their natural environment, but also to change their social institutions, if not in the light of a consciously held ideal, at least so as to remove some of the major ills of life.

Now this growing dominance of mind over nature and social structures has resulted in very great gains; for many of the ills which men have been accustomed to accept as inevitable are preventible by human wisdom and goodwill. But the change of attitude may be carried too far. There is a danger that men may regard themselves as completely masters of their fate, set up their uncriticised desires as the directors of evolution, and forget that there is a constitution of the universe to which the proper attitude is one of recognition and acceptance, and into conformity to which they ought to discipline themselves. In particular, there is the danger that, either directly or through their mastery of nature, they may try to control their fellow-men, that they may regard people as objects to be understood and mastered and used for their purposes, instead of recognising them as persons, independent centres of purposes, to be accepted and respected. The danger of adopting this attitude is specially great when people are concerned with large masses of men to whom their relations are largely impersonal and mechanical. An attitude of humility and deference, even of reverence, is becoming in our relations with another personality; for it is something which has value in itself and not just in relation to our purposes; and this attitude is inconsistent with that of mastery and control. I believe nothing is more necessary or perhaps more difficult in the modern world than to distinguish clearly between the occasions on which these different attitudes are appropriate; for without a recognition that there are ideails and values which are rooted in the nature of man and the constitution of the universe, and, therefore, to be accepted and appreciated, the reforming spirit is in danger of losing its direction.

There have been two other lines of development which in part preceded, and which provide a supplement and corrective to, the attitude of mastery and control which is embodied in the idea of progress. The first is an increasing emphasis on the inner life, on motives and intentions and the spirit in which actions are performed. This is the one sense, to which I referred above, in which there seems to me that there has been development in the meaning of moral goodness from the more primitive to the more advanced societies. In the main, the primitive tends to think of moral goodness as doing what is believed to be right rather than as doing it from a good motive. It is not so much that he lays all the emphasis on the external action as that he fails to distinguish as clearly as we do between the external action and the spirit in which it is done, just as he often fails to distinguish between accident and design, or between the unforeseen consequences of an action and those which are deliberately willed. It is true that in relatively small communities, in which there is little difference between the ideas as to what is right entertained by different individuals, the performance of the external action may be taken by a man's neighbours as a rough indication of his motives. It is also true that field workers among primitives give us less information than we would wish about the extent to which, in their moral judgements, primitives take account of motives; and that the more thoroughly primitive ways of life are investigated by trained experts, the more account they are found to take of motives, as we have seen, for example, in Malinowski's account of the Trobrianders, Junod's account of the Bantu, and Hogbin's account of the inhabitants of Wogeo. But when due allowance has been made for these considerations, there is little doubt that most primitive peoples pay insufficient attention to the inner aspect of the moral life; and that one of the most important developments from the more primitive to the more advanced peoples has consisted in the discovery of the inner life and the consequent importance attached to conscientiousness and purity of motives.

The other closely connected line of development has been an increasing appreciation of the individuality of the moral agent as a self-governing, responsible personality, with a right of private judgement and entitled to some measure of tolerance and freedom to conduct his life in his own way. In these respects, there are considerable differences between different primitive peoples, but there is no doubt that among most of them these aspects of the moral life are imperfectly recognised and insufficiently provided for. Just as there is a lack of clear distinction between the inner and the outer aspect of life and a failure to recognise the inner life as the real self, so we find an absence of sharp distinction between a man and his belongings, or a man and his family, or the individual and his group. There is, therefore, a tendency to treat an individual as a member of a group rather than as a responsible, independent agent, and to pay less attention to justice to the individual than to what is believed to be for the good of the group. We must not, however, exaggerate this characteristic of primitive ways of thinking, as is done when we are told that among them there is no sense of individual responsibility or personality: that “responsibility is collective and punishment vicarious”.5 For, while there is a substantial foundation for such statements in the facts of primitive life, they apply much more to the relations between groups than they do to the relations between members within a group. When we distinguish between these relations, I think we shall find that, significant as are the differences between primitives and ourselves in these respects, they are differences of degree rather than of kind, and that there are analogies to most of their ideas and judgements among ourselves.6

It is true that in their thinking of the relations between one group and another, whether the groups concerned are families or villages or clans or tribes, primitives accept the principle of collective responsibility more often than our ideas of justice would warrant. They are prepared to let one man suffer for the misdeeds of another. They will defend or avenge a fellow member without too nice a regard for the justice of his cause. They will visit the sins of the parents upon the children. They will take vengeance on one of a man's kin or group instead of on the actual offender. And they seem to be generally satisfied that these things meet the requirements of justice. But, while instances of all these things may be quoted from different primitive peoples, they do not prove that primitives do not recognise individual responsibility. Some writers have an unfortunate tendency to generalise from one or two instances. When they come across one or a few cases in which a primitive people accept, or act on, the principle of collective responsibility in circumstances in which we would not do so, they tend to jump to the conclusion that the people concerned do not recognise the separate individuality of their members at all, that they have no sense of individual responsibility. This, however, is very far from being the case. Indeed, the very writers who indulge in these generalisations often report many situations in which the people about whom the statements are made show a quite keen sense of individual responsibility; and careful observers report both the cases in which primitives do, and the cases in which they do not, show a sense of individual responsibility.

Take as an example the case of punishment. Hobhouse, Wheeler and Ginsberg sum up the results of their examination of the evidence available about more than 650 primitive peoples as follows: “It is just as likely that primitive justice or redress is sought at the expense of the wrongdoer alone as that it will be collective or vicarious”.7 Peristiany reports that the Kip-sigis have a keen sense of individual responsibility in most things, but that in the case of murder they accept the principle of collective responsibility.8 Similarly, Schapera tells us that among the Tswana the head of the family is responsible for the conduct of its members but that “when a thrashing is deserved, it is the culprit who gets it”.9 The Trobrianders sometimes refuse to exact vengeance for one of their number when they recognise that he had been clearly in the wrong;10 while other primitives accept the principle of collective responsibility only for the first offence committed by one of their number, and warn the culprit that the offence must not be committed again, and, if it is, they refuse to defend him.11 The fact seems to be that, even in the relations between different groups, while primitives may have to be content to take vengeance on any member of a group, one of whose members has offended against them, many, if not most, of them much prefer to punish the actual offender, if they can get him.

Thus it is by no means true that, even in the relations of different groups, primitives never recognise the principle of individual responsibility, but their recognition of it is partial and hesitating. In the relations between the members of the in-group, on the other hand, they recognise it to a quite marked degree. In general, we may say that, in the relations between the members of a group, the individual is regarded as responsible for his own acts and blamed or praised accordingly. Action may be taken against him and punishment inflicted on him as an individual; and, in certain circumstances, he may be driven out of the group to face the perils of the outside world and usually to perish. No doubt in some cases his family may be made to suffer with him, but this is by no means always true. But when due allowance has been made for all these considerations, it must still be admitted that, in many circumstances, primitives pay much less regard to the principle of strict individual responsibility than more advanced peoples; and the line of advance has been towards an increasing emphasis on individual responsibility.

Moreover, even within the group, that which is believed to be for the good of the group as a whole tends to be regarded by the primitive as more important than justice to the individual. Accordingly, we find actions which are disapproved but not punished because suitable punishment might disrupt the group or deprive it of a member. We also find cases in which an individual, who is regarded as less important to the group, is handed over to the vengeance of another group instead of the person who has actually offended against them. Such a person may be either a kinsman of the offender or someone who is disapproved of by his group for other reasons. But, while this involves vicarious suffering, it is doubtful if the group think of it as vicarious punishment.

We find analogies to many of these practices in which one has to suffer for the good of others among ourselves, but we do not think of them as vicarious punishment. We segregate lepers and typhoid carriers and those who have, or have been in contact with, infectious diseases; and we impose these irksome restraints and restrictions on them, not because we believe they are responsible for their condition or have been guilty of anything morally wrong, but for the good of the community as a whole. We conscript one man in war-time and send him to almost certain death, while we compel another man who wants to take these risks to remain in a safe job, because he possesses some special skill which is of value to the community. In other words, we, too, especially in times of stress and group danger, subordinate justice to the individual to what we think is for the good of the group. The primitives do this on a much more extended scale, though its extent varies from one people to another; and this is so, in part at least, because times of stress and danger are more common among them. But neither with us nor with them is this inconsistent with the recognition of individual responsibility in other connections; and, as I said, they too recognise it within limits.

There are two other pieces of evidence that primitives regard their fellow members of the group as independent personalities entitled to consideration and respect. One is their strict codes of etiquette and manners, and their unwillingness to hurt anyone's feelings by infringing these codes. Field workers among most primitive peoples have been deeply impressed by their politeness, their sensitiveness to the feelings of other people, their unwillingness to do anything that would hurt them. The other is that, in regard to all matters which are not believed to affect the safety or the food supply of the group, many primitive peoples allow their members considerable scope for free choice and initiative. And few of them persecute their members for unorthodox beliefs. As long as a person's actions conform to what is believed to be for the good of the group, his beliefs are largely regarded as his own affair. And so, we find sceptics and agnostics as well as reformers and rebels among them; and the former at least are generally left unmolested.

Nevertheless, in all matters of fundamental importance freedom of choice and initiative is very strictly limited. For, in the conditions of life of most primitive people, unity is necessary to survival and unity is apt to be interpreted as uniformity; non-conformity is regarded as dangerous and, therefore, the would-be reformer is apt to be classed with the rebel and treated accordingly. No doubt the most difficult problem with which any people is confronted is that of reconciling freedom for initiative and the expression of creative impulses, which justice to the individual demands, with the requirements of social order, which regard for the common good demands. Every way of life, primitive or civilised, is an attempt to solve this problem; but among most primitives the scales tend to be very heavily weighted in favour of social order and the common good rather than justice to the individual and opportunities for initiative and self-expression.

Whether an individual can effect any changes in the way of life of his people, and, if he can, to what extent he can do so, depends not merely on his personal qualities, but also on the position which he occupies in the community. Specially gifted individuals who are in positions of political or religious authority sometimes bring about important changes; but, in the main, such changes as come about in the institutions and ways of life of primitive groups are not the results of conscious planning; the emergence of the idea of progress in social and political conditions, the attitude of the reformer who sets out deliberately to change the beliefs and institutions of his people in the light of a consciously entertained ideal, is, as we have seen, one of the significant changes in the advance from the more primitive to the more advanced peoples. And this development is not unconnected with increasing respect for personality, for the need for tolerance of individual differences and the desirability of opportunities for initiative and the expression of creative impulses. Here, too, the line of progress has been in the direction of a more widespread recognition of individuals as self-governing, responsible persons, to be persuaded rather than coerced, to be provided with opportunities for developing their powers rather than directed.

The last line of progress which I want to mention concerns the development which we find in men's conception of the supernatural. We have seen that even the most primitive men believe themselves to be in contact with something in their environment which they regard as supersensible, superhuman, or supernatural, something which evokes in them a profound emotional reaction, and to which they consider it necessary to adjust themselves. Here the line of progress has not been towards a greater certainty of the reality of the supernatural, but towards a different conception of its character. Just as we find man, as his insight into himself and his fellows grows, drawing a clearer distinction between the inner and the outer aspects of his life, and tending more and more to regard the inner or spiritual self as the real self, and its values as the highest values; so, in his thinking of his cosmic environment, we find him distinguishing more sharply between the natural and the spiritual, and interpreting the supernatural in more personal and spiritual terms, till in the end he comes to conceive it as a personal or supra-personal being who is the embodiment of perfect wisdom and goodness, a being who is regarded not so much as an external judge or law-giver, much less in terms of mere power, operating on men through hope or fear, but rather as a being whose very existence is a condemnation of moral imperfection and weakness, and arouses in man a desire for moral purity and perfection, a being whose character evokes reverence and loyalty and provides a standing challenge and encouragement to man to try to realise the highest ideals which he finds in his moral consciousness, and to transform himself and his world so as to approximate more closely to their requirements. At-one-ment with the supernatural then becomes his highest ideal, that which calls forth his supreme loyalty.

In this way, religion, as it renews its vitality in the insight of its great teachers, has shown a wonderful capacity for absorbing into itself and putting in a cosmic setting the values and ideals which the developing moral consciousness reveals. The cosmological and metaphysical framework into which the values are fitted may change from age to age, but the reality of the values and the need for loyalty to them remain; and the added significance which religion confers on them provides a support of the moral will and an incentive to right-doing the importance of which cannot be over-estimated. Nevertheless, as Bowman has pointed out, the lesson of history seems to be that “when morality and religion fail to synthesise, morality may hold its own against religion, but religion will have the utmost difficulty in maintaining itself against morality”.12 Certainly not the least significant of the triumphs of the moral spirit has been the gradual moralisation of the concept of the supernatural, and the line of progress has been towards conceiving the relation of man to the supernatural as a relation between persons, a relation in which the value and dignity of personality is respected and enhanced.

What we seem to find, then, is this. From whatever point of view we consider the progress in enlightenment or in the conception of the moral ideal from the more primitive to the more advanced peoples, it seems to take the form of an increasing recognition of the fundamental importance of personality and of the distinction between persons and things. Increasingly accurate knowledge of matters of fact, and increasing communications and contacts and co-operation between individuals and peoples, provide conditions in which moral insight can function more effectively; and, as it does so, we find men slowly, intermittently and haltingly, but none the less surely, coming to recognise other men as persons, independent, responsible, self-governing individuals. Things we try to master and control and use. Their value consists in ministering to our purposes. Persons are subjects of purposes, not just objects of the purposes of other people. They are separate centres of spiritual life, independent expressions of the moral consciousness. This characteristic of men as persons is what Temple has in mind when he writes13 of the moral equality of men, and what the advanced religions refer to when they say that all men are equal in the sight of God.

This moral equality of men is, of course, compatible with many differences between them in other respects. Men differ in physical and mental capacity, in knowledge and experience, in wisdom and moral goodness, and so on; but they are equal in a sense which is deeper than all their differences. They are all subjects not objects, persons not things, ends not means. They are self-conscious moral beings, having in themselves a principle of self-government which gives them a worth and dignity which entitle them to our consideration and respect. Only as we recognise this do we understand them as they really are. It is this fundamental moral equality of men as persons which is the justification of their equality before the law, equality of civil and political rights, equality of educational opportunity, and so on. The ideal to which the growing recognition of it points is that of a community of persons co-operating as persons. In this ideal we find the criterion of progress in moral enlightenment, the criterion by which we can test the adequacy of different ways of life. This ideal seems to be operative in the minds of all men so far as they are rational moral beings, however dim and obscure their grasp of it and however imperfect their understanding of its requirements may often be. Its operation is the mainspring of progress, and of dissatisfaction with things as they are. We find it adumbrated in the constitution of the simplest primitive institutions and in the moral symmetry of the principle of reciprocity which underlies all primitive ways of life. At the other end of the scale, it forms the basis of Kant's conception of a Kingdom of Ends and of Christ's idea of the Kingdom of God. The difference which we find between these extremes is twofold, consisting partly in the extension of the group who are recognised as persons, and partly in a deepening of the meaning of what it is to be a person, a deepening which has come about through a clearer grasp of the inner life and of the distinction between persons and things.

The principle of which this ideal is the expression I have called the principle of justice or equity. It seems to me an objective or rational principle. The moral equality of men as persons is not something which depends on us, not something which we want or create. It is something which we discover or recognise and have to accept. Our recognition of it may be within narrow limits and confined to moments of insight when our vision is unclouded by passion and prejudice. In such moments we find we have no option but to recognise others as self-governing moral beings like ourselves, with independent lives and purposes of their own, and our natural interest in them and their welfare takes the form of a desire not to direct and control them and impose our will upon them, but to co-operate with them, to provide opportunities for them to realise their purpose and develop their personalities. But if the spark which flickers in such moments of insight is not to die, but to develop into a steady flame, it must be caught and embodied in patterns of behaviour and institutions and a way of life, which will act as constant reminders of it, till it becomes part and parcel of our habits of thinking and feeling and acting, not so much something which is at the focus of consciousness as what forms the background in the light of which we see everything else. Even then, there will be many forces in us and around us which militate against its continued recognition and its realisation, and the effort to be true to it requires a constant warfare from which there is no discharge. There is, however, another side to this picture which is no less important. The real test of the genuineness of our vision in what we take to be our moments of insight is whether the values and principles and ideals which it reveals can be embodied in a way of life in which they can be reconciled with others which we also recognise. The attempt to effect such a reconciliation may mean a more or less radical reconstruction of our accepted way of life and it may also involve a modification of the new values and ideals themselves; but, until we see how it can be done, we have not really grasped the meaning of these values and ideals themselves, and, unless it can be done, they cannot be accepted as they stand as genuine and worthy of our loyalty. The real difference between the genuine vision of the moral pioneer and the wishful thinking of the utopian dreamer is that the former can, and the latter cannot, be translated into an operative ideal; and the reason why it cannot is not that it is too ideal, but that it is not ideal enough, because it has not grasped the inner nature and possibilities of the actual, what human nature has in it to be and is striving to become.

No doubt the individual who believes he sees values hitherto either wholly or partially unrecognised, rightly considers it his duty to work for their recognition and realisation, even if he cannot see in detail how the way of life of his people has to be reconstructed to give expression to them; and he may be performing a very useful function in his one-sided emphasis on them. But the final test of their validity is their capacity to be incorporated in an operative ideal. And the moral pioneer himself may be unsure of the genuineness of his vision till he has succeeded in persuading at least some others of the worth of the values which he is seeking to realise. He is often acutely conscious that, in pursuing them, he is taking a risk, and that the risk is a moral risk. It is not only a venture of faith, but a venture which may not succeed and may not deserve to succeed, because the insight on which it is based is partial and imperfect. There is such an element of faith in all moral living, but it is specially prominent in the lives of moral and social reformers.

I have already referred to the distinction which is sometimes drawn between two kinds of duty—one concerned with the conscientious discharge of the requirements of existing institutions and ways of life, and the other concerned with the remoulding of the operative ideal so as to bring it nearer to the formal ideal—and I pointed out that both rest ultimately on the same principle and tend to merge into one another. In a relatively stable society, most of the duties of most people belong to the former class, and the moral goodness of most individuals consists in the conscientious discharge of such duties; but the best men in every society feel it their duty to do more than the accepted pattern of the way of life of their people requires, or than others have a right to expect of them. Thus such people are already on the way to raising the requirements of the accepted pattern. The reformer who tries consciously to alter the operative ideal so as to make it more consistent, or to embody new values in it, is only carrying the process a stage further. While there is a difference of emphasis between the two attitudes, they may both be found alternating in the life of the same person; and when duties of the former kind are performed in a spirit of loyalty to the formal ideal, which the accepted way of life is an attempt to express, they tend to pass into the latter class.

In a period of transition such as we are living in today, when traditional values are questioned and established institutions are crumbling, and people are trying consciously to reconstruct many of their institutions and, therefore, the way of life which in their interrelation they constitute, duties of the second kind tend to be much in evidence, and their determination is apt to be a cause of moral perplexity to many individuals. In such circumstances, it is essential that men should examine the foundations of the moral and social order and bring to light the fundamental principle which justifies traditional values and institutions, so far as they are justifiable; and which points the direction in which they should be modified, so far as they require modification. The principle which our analysis has revealed as the basis of moral and social obligations may be stated, ‘Be a person and recognise and treat others as persons’. That, however, is only a formal principle and, before we can understand its nature and requirements fully, we must, as I have already said, try to embody it in a detailed way of life more completely than has yet been done; but many of its conditions are already clear, and what is necessary is to grasp it more clearly, apply it more consistently, and extend it to the whole range of human relationships.

In these lectures, I have been concerned with the life of man between birth and death with nothing more than occasional side-glances at the cosmic arena in which this life is lived. This is not because I consider metaphysical and theological speculations, of the kind with which most of the lectures on this foundation have been concerned, idle or unimportant. It is rather because I chose as my subject the last, and perhaps the least, though I should contend not the least important, of the subjects prescribed by Lord Gifford, the nature of morality and the grounds of moral obligation; and because I am convinced that these can be discovered by an analysis of the moral consciousness and the consideration of the life of man as a person among persons, without reference to any metaphysical or theological system. If my analysis has been sound, there is one, and only one, thing which is absolutely and unconditionally good, moral goodness, the goodness of conscientiously doing that which we believe to be right and trying to realise that which we believe to be good, and one, and only one, thing absolutely evil, the evil will, the deliberate doing of that which we believe to be wrong, not because we believe it to be wrong, but despite the belief that it is wrong; and this would still be so, and the duty of realising the one and avoiding the other would still be unconditionally binding, even if there were nothing beyond the grave, and even if there were no answer from the universe to man's cry for cosmic support in his moral struggle except the echo of his own voice. Not that I believe that the evidence compels us to take so pessimistic a view of the universe and man's destiny as part of it, a view which, as it seems to me, would make the emergence of a being capable of entertaining a moral ideal and feeling an obligation to realise it in spite of consequences, an inexplicable enigma, and which would deprive many people of one of the main stimuli to moral steadfastness and make it more difficult for them to maintain the warfare against the powers of evil in and around them. For though the conclusions at which I have arrived about the moral life do not seem to me to derive their justification or authority from any metaphysical or theological system, and though they seem more certain than the results of any such speculations, they are not without metaphysical implications. They have to be taken into account in constructing cosmological systems, and, though they are not the only evidence to be taken into account, any system which does not leave room for them seems to me necessarily false. But if we are to use them as data or premises for such construction, it is all the more important that they should themselves be independently established.