increasingly social. Enlightenment saves his social dispositions from grovelling conformity, and his “self-regarding sentiments” from suicidal narrowness. And now the conflict between himself and his group continues for the most part only in so far as the group makes unreasonable demands upon him. But this, too, diminishes as the individuals constituting or dominating the group become themselves more intelligent, more keenly cognizant of the limits within which the demands of the group upon its members must be restricted if individual allegiance is to be retained. Since the reduction of the conflict between the individual and the community without detriment to the interests of either is the central problem of political ethics, it is obvious that the practical task of ethics is not to formulate a specific moral code, but to bring about a spread of intelligence. And since the reduction of this conflict brings with it a better coördination of the members of the group, through their greater ability to perceive the advantages of communal action in an intelligently administered group, the problem of social coherence and permanence itself falls into the same larger problem of intellectual development.

“How to make our ideas clear”;—what if that be the social problem? What a wealth of import in that little phrase of Socrates,—τὁ τἱ;—“what is it?” What is my good, my interest? What do I really want?—To find the answer to that, said Robert Louis Stevenson, is to achieve wisdom and old age. What is my country? What is patriotism? “If you wish to converse with me,” said Voltaire, “you must define your terms.” If you wish to be moral, you must define your terms. If our civilization is to keep its head above the flux of time, we must define our terms.

For these are the critical days of the secularization of moral sanctions; the theological navel-string binding men to “good behavior” has snapped. What are the leaders of men going to do about it? Will they try again the old gospel of self-sacrifice? But a world fed on self-sacrifice is a world of lies, a world choking with the stench of hypocrisy. To preach self-sacrifice is not to solve, it is precisely to shirk, the problem of ethics,—the problem of eliminating individual self-sacrifice while preserving social stability: the problem of reconciling the individual as such with the individual as citizen. Or will our leaders try to replace superstition with an extended physical compulsion, making the policeman and the prison do all the work of social coördination? But surely compulsion is a last resort; not because it is “wrong,” but because it is inexpedient, because it rather cuts than unties the knot, because it produces too much friction to allow of movement. Compulsion is warranted when there is question of preventing the interference of one individual or group with another; but it is a poor instrument for the establishment or maintenance of ideals. Suppose we stop moralizing, suppose we reduce regimentation, suppose we begin to define our terms. Suppose we let people know quite simply (and not in Academese) that moral codes are born not in heaven but in social needs; and suppose we set about finding a way of spreading intelligence so that individual treachery to real communal interest, and communal exploitation of individual allegiance, may both appear on the surface, as they are at bottom, unintelligently suicidal. Is that too much to hope for? Perhaps. But then again, it may be, the worth and meaning of life lie precisely in this, that there is still a possibility of organizing that experiment.

IX

“Happiness” and “Virtue”

A WORD now about the last part of the Socratic formula: intelligence = virtue = happiness. And this a word of warning: remember that the “virtue” here spoken of is not the mediæval virtue taught in Sunday schools. Surely our children must wonder are we fools or liars when we tell them, “Be good and you will be happy.” Better forget “virtue” and read simply: intelligence=happiness. That appears more closely akin to the rough realities of life: intelligence means ability to adapt means to ends, and happiness means success in adapting means to ends; happiness, then, varies with ability. Happiness is intelligence on the move; a pervasive physiological tonus accompanying the forward movement of achievement. It is not the consciousness of virtue: that is not happiness, but snobbery. And similarly, remorse is, in the intelligent man, not the consciousness of “sin,” but the consciousness of a past stupidity. So far as you fail to win your real ends you are unhappy,—and have proved unintelligent. But the Preacher says, “He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” True enough if the increment of knowledge is the correction of a past error; the sorrow is a penalty paid for the error, not for the increase of knowledge. True, too, that intelligence does not consistently lessen conflicts, and that it discloses a new want for every want it helps to meet. But the joy of life lies not so much in the disappearance of difficulties as in the overcoming of them; not so much in the diminution of conflict as in the growth of achievement. Surely it is time we had an ethic that stressed achievement rather than quiescence. And further, intelligence must not be thought of as the resignation of disillusionment, the consciousness of impotence; intelligence is to be conceived of in terms of adaptive activity, of movement towards an end, of coördinated self-expression and behavior. Finally, it is but fair to interpret the formula as making happiness and intelligence coincide only so far as the individual’s happiness depends on his own conduct. The causes of unhappiness may be an inherited deformity, or an accident not admitting of provision; such cases do not so much contradict as lie outside the formula. So far as your happiness depends on your activities, it will vary with the degree of intelligence you show. Act intelligently, and you will not know regret; feel that you are moving on toward your larger ends, and you will be happy.

X

The Socratic Challenge

BUT if individual and social health and happiness depend on intelligence rather than on “virtue,” and if the exaltation of intelligence was a cardinal element in the Athenian view of life, why did the Socratic ethic fail to save Athens from decay? And why did the supposedly intelligent Athenians hail this generous old Dr. Johnson of philosophy into court and sentence him to death?

The answer is, Because the Athenians refused to make the Socratic experiment. They were intelligent, but not intelligent enough. They could diagnose the social malady, could trace it to the decay of supernatural moral norms; but they could not find a cure, they had not the vision to see that salvation lay not in the compulsory retention of old norms, but in the forging of new and better ones, capable of withstanding the shock of questioning and trial. What they saw was chaos; and like most statesmen they longed above all things for order. They were not impressed by Socrates’ allegiance to law, his cordial admission of the individual’s obligations to the community for the advantages of social organization. They listened to the disciples: to Antisthenes, who laughed at patriotism; to Aristippus, who denounced all government; to Plato, scorner of democracy; and they attacked the master because (not to speak of pettier political reasons) it was he, they thought, who was the root of the evil. They could not see that this man was their ally and not their foe; that rescue for Athens lay in helping him rather than in sentencing him to die. And how well they could have helped him! For to preach intelligence is not enough; there remains to provide for every one the instrumentalities of intelligence. What men needed, what Athenian