TRAINING IN ETHICAL SCIENCE. 99 



of that which is conducive to the happiness of man, it is certainly a 

 faculty or sense which is largely developed by educational training 

 and example. Without this, it surely can not be relied upon as an 

 unerring guide in all the problems of life. Man does not possess a 

 power to distinguish between right and wrong action which rises 

 superior to the need of cultivation. For such culture teachers are 

 required, and the great necessity of united action is apparent. If 

 associated action in the shape of schools of moral or ethical training, 

 and agencies for charitable work the fruit of such training are de- 

 manded, we are confronted with the question of what their nature 

 should be, and how far the want is already supplied. If the means 

 now provided for these purposes are as good as any that can be devised, 

 and if they are suited to the needs and uses of all, it were idle to supply 

 other agencies. 



Foremost, perhaps, among the agencies now existing, are the 

 churches. According to the theories adopted and taught by the 

 various religious organizations which are collectively known as Chris- 

 tian, the cultivation of ethical truths, or, in other words, the recogni- 

 tion and adoption of high standards of duty, is regarded as but a part 

 of a religious system founded upon the revealed will of a Divine Being. 



To those who accept so-called revelation as infallible truth, the 

 rules of conduct or systems of ethics recognized in their Scriptures 

 furnish, in theory, and so far as they can be harmonized, final and 

 absolute standards of human duty. To them, theoretically at least, 

 right or wrong action is such simply by reason of its adherence to or 

 departure from certain standards of duty recognized in their sacred 

 writings. 



To the individual who looks upon the sacred books of Jew and 

 Christian, of Mohammedan and Buddhist, as alike the works of men 

 men of varying degrees of mental and moral development the idea 

 of accepting their conclusions as Jinal upon the great problems of the 

 duty of man seems narrow and illogical. To him the absolute accept- 

 ance of these standards as final, however high he may concede some 

 of them to be, is to place a limit upon moral development and to deny 



that 



" The thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns." 



But it does not follow, even from the point of view of the agnostic, 

 that there is nothing of value in the ethical teachings of the orthodox 

 Christian churches. Most if not all religions have recognized, and in 

 some sense demanded, the adoption of certain exalted standards of duty, 

 and in this particular the Christian religion stands deservedly high 

 among the great religions of the world. Charity, kindness, and love, 

 are not less beautiful because recognized as such by the churches. A 

 true statement of the duty of man to his fellow-man does not become 

 false because attributed to a Divine Being, or declared to be inspired. 

 It does not become false even when the observance of the duty is 



