THE DISCOVERY OF THE FHTrRE. 877 



have rinlit? Ev(MTl)()dy holicves tliiit the prcsciit is (Mitiroly dcter- 

 iiiiiiMl }»y the })iist you say; hut then everyhody Ix^lieves also tliat the 

 present determines th(^ future. Are we simply separatino- and contrast- 

 ino' two sides of e\'ervh()dy's opinion ? To whieh one replies that we 

 are not diseussing what we know and believe about the relations of 

 past, present, and future, or of the relation of cause and eli'ect to each 

 other in time. We all know the ])resent depends for its causes on the 

 past, and that the future depends for its causes upon the })res(Mit. Hut 

 this discussion concerns the way in which we aj)proach thinos upon 

 this common o-round of knowledge and belief. We may all know there 

 is an east and a W(\st, but if some of us always approach and look at 

 things from the west, if some of us always approach and look at things 

 from the east, and if others again wander about with a pretty disre- 

 gard of direction, looking nt things as chance determines, some of us 

 will get to a westward conclusion of this journey, and some of us will 

 get to an eastward conclusion, and some of us will get to no detinite 

 conclusion at all about all sorts of important matters. And yet those 

 who are traveling east, and those who are traveling west, and those 

 who are wandering haphazard, may be all upon the same ground of 

 belief and statement and amidst'the same assembly of pro^•en facts. 

 Precisely the same thing will happen if you always ai)proach things 

 from the point of view of their causes, or if vou approach them always 

 with a view to their probable etfects. And in several x'cry impoi'tant 

 groups of human affairs it is possible to show ((uite clearly just how 

 widely apart the two methods, pursued each in its ])urity. take those 

 who follow them. 



I suppose that three hundred vears ago all people who thought at 

 all about moral ({uestions, about questions of right and wrong, dinluced 

 th(>ir rules of conduct absolutely and unreservedly from the past, from 

 some dogmatic injunction, some finally settled decr(^e. The great 

 mass of people do so to-day. It is written, they say. Thou shalt not 

 steal, for example — that is the sole, complete, and suihcient i-cason why 

 you should not steal, and even to-day there is a strong aversion to 

 admit that there is any relation between the actual conscMiuences of 

 acts and the imperatives of i-ight and wrong. Our lives are to rc^ap the 

 fruits of determiiiate tilings, and it is still a fundamental presumption 

 of the established morality that one nuist do right though the heav<'ns 

 fall. But there are people coming into this world who would r(>fuse 

 to call it right if it brought the heavens about our heads, however 

 authoritativtJ its sources and sanctions, and this new disposition is, I 

 t)elieve, a growing one. 1 supi)ose in all ages people in A, timid, hesi- 

 tating, guilty way have t(Mnpered the austerity of a dogmatic moral 

 code by small infi'actious to secure obxiously Icindly ends, but it was, 

 1 am told, the. Jesuits w lio lirst deliberately sought to ([ualit'y the 



