EDITOR'S TABLE. 



263 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 



IN the preface to bis Data of Ethics Mr. 

 Spencer recognized the danger which 

 might be apprehended from a weaken- 

 ing of the authority of existing moral sys- 

 tems before the authority of a more com- 

 prehensive and rational system should 

 be established. The caution he thus 

 gave fell, we have no doubt, with grave 

 significance upon many ears. In not a 

 few minds there must be a conscious- 

 ness of more unsettlement than reset- 

 tlement of moral ideas and standards ; 

 and, if so, it can hardly be that, in 

 some cases at least, moral practice has 

 not been unfavorably affected. Since 

 the Data of Ethics was published, the 

 ferment of thought in the world has 

 been more rapid than ever ; and it be- 

 comes a question of serious practical 

 import by what means the minds and 

 characters of the present generation, 

 particularly of the younger portion of 

 it, may be fortified against the perils at- 

 tendant on their intellectual situation. 



Let us take the case of a father 

 whose son, brought up more or less in 

 an atmosphere of advanced ideas, is 

 showing a distrust of the traditional 

 supports and sanctions of morality. The 

 duty of the father is plainly to point 

 out that the vitality or worth of a mor- 

 al principle does not depend on the 

 strength of the fortress which mankind 

 in any age may have built for its de- 

 fense. The principle is one thing, the 

 wall surrounding it is another. The time 

 must come, we believe, when all moral 

 principles will be left simply to the care 

 of man's enlightened reason, and when 

 that protection will be sufficient. Mean- 

 time, as traditional defenses fall into de- 

 cay, it is well to point out that walls so 

 massive would not have been built un- 

 less the consciousness of men had told 

 them that there was something precious 



to guard. Even the ceremonial observ- 

 ances of society, artificial and over- 

 strained as they may sometimes appear, 

 are the bulwarks of something that is 

 essential to the well-being of men in 

 their social relations. On this point 

 Mr. Spencer, in the second volume of 

 his Principles of Sociology, has well re- 

 marked that, "just as the abolition of 

 religious restraints, while yet moral re- 

 straints have not grown strong enough, 

 entails increase of misconduct; so, if 

 the observances regulating social inter- 

 course lose their sway faster than the 

 feelings which prompt true politeness 

 develop, there inevitably follows more 

 or less rudeness in behavior and conse- 

 quent liability to discord." 



It is well, therefore, to say to the 

 young, "Gain knowledge fast if you 

 will, but remember that increase of 

 knowledge does not always mean in- 

 crease of wisdom, and may even result 

 in its impairment if it nourishes an un- 

 due self-confidence." The poet Shelley 

 was radical enough, yet even he con- 

 fessed that the world had more knowl- 

 edge than it could digest, or, in other 

 words, rightly reduce to practice. If 

 we compare the science of to-day with 

 that of the opening centuries of our 

 era, we find the difference almost im- 

 measurable; but if we compare the 

 wisdom of to-day, as shown in our best 

 moral treatises or as exemplified in the 

 lives of men, with the wisdom of that 

 period as expressed in the works of such 

 writers as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus 

 Aurelius, and as embodied in their lives, 

 the difference is far less marked. A man 

 of our time who took his science from 

 Lucretius would wander in gross dark- 

 ness ; but a man who took the treatise 

 On Duties by Cicero, the contemporary 

 of Lucretius, as his guide in moral ques- 

 tions would not be led far astray. This 



