820 THE DEPENDENT GROUP 



the political will of a democratic age nor the authority of an ethical 

 philosophy countenances any standard for social conduct which is 

 not universal, purely human. Persons cannot ethically be treated 

 as means to ends outside themselves. No policy which is partial to 

 a family, a dynasty, an order, a church, a class, at the expense of 

 others, can be defended. (3) Therefore our standard is set up 

 for the defense of the helpless child, the undeveloped, the tardy, the 

 incapable; not because of what they can now do for society, but 

 because they are human and have potential capacity for future 

 development. (4) The analysis of social ends shows that we include 

 all qualities and lands of the humanly desirable. As a nature-object 

 every person must have a certain minimum of food and shelter, and, 

 normally, the race-interest asks for provision for propagation, 

 maintenance, and protection of healthy offspring. Hence the 

 demand of our standard that all capable human beings have a chance 

 to work and produce wealth, material objects of desire. As a 

 psychical person, one who must find his own way in a knowable 

 world, each human being must be taught what he can learn of the 

 knowledge possessed by his community, and his power to learn must 

 be developed. Culture must be many-sided, even in an asylum for 

 idiots or a prison for the criminal. (5) Scientific social ethics tran- 

 scends merely qualitative analysis of social elements of welfare, and 

 is ambitious to employ mathematics as far as possible in the accurate 

 and quantitative measurement of its standard. Our age is trying to 

 define at least a minimum standard of life for all citizens. This 

 process has already gone farther than many citizens are aware. 

 The standardizing of weights and measures is a recent addition to the 

 functions and offices of our federal government at Washington, and it 

 marks an advance in the technical arts. At many points * we are 

 seeking to standardize the conditions of welfare of human beings. 

 Naturally we are here concerned with a minimum standard; if we 

 can discover and fix this measure, the more capable, aspiring, and 

 energetic members of society may safely be left free to enjoy all 

 above that level which they can justly acquire and rationally use. 



At this hour no rational (scientific) standard for the minimum 

 income of wage-earners has been generally accepted. (1) The 

 rough rule of average employers is " the law of supply and demand; " 

 which law actually leads to the destruction of human life on a 

 gigantic scale for the sake of profits. It has no final social justifi- 

 cation. (2) The gradation of wages according to the rate of profits 

 is not rational nor equitable. The fluctuations and inequalities under 

 such a rule would be unendurable. 2 (3) The rule of the " sliding 



1 See C. R. Henderson, Practical Sociology in the Service of Social Ethics, 

 ' Decennial Publications of the University of Chicago," 1902. 



2 The Outlook, August, 1904, articles by Messrs. Hand and Poole. 



