378 THE DISCOVEKY OF THE FUTURE. 



moral interpretation of aets 1)y a consideration of their results. To-day 

 there are few people \n ho have not more or less clearly discovered the 

 future as a more or less important factor in moral considerations. 

 To-da}" there is a certain small proportion of people who frankly regard 

 morality as a means to an end, as an o\-erridino- of inmiediate and per- 

 sonal considerations out of regard to something- to be attained in the 

 future, and who break away altogether from the idea of a code dog- 

 matically established for ever. Most of us are not so definite as that, 

 but most of us are deeply tinged with the spirit of ♦compromise between 

 the past and the future; we profess an unbounded allegiance to the 

 prescriptions of the past, and we practice a general observance of its 

 injunctions, but we (Qualify to a vague, variable extent with considera- 

 tions of expediency. We hold, for example, that we must respect our 

 promises. But suppose we tind unexpectedly that for oiu^ of us to 

 keep a promise, which has l)een sealed and sworn in the most sacred 

 fashion, must lead to the great suifei-ing of some other human [)eing, 

 must lead, in fact, to practical evWi Would a man do right or wrong 

 if he broke such a promise? The practical decision most modern peo- 

 ple would mak(^ would ])e to l)reak the promise. Most would say that 

 the}' did evil to avoid a greater e\\\. liut suppose it was not such very 

 great suffering we were going to inflict, })ut only some sufi'ering? 

 And suppose it was a rather important promise? With most of us it 

 would then come to be a matter of weighing the promise, the thing of 

 the past, against this unexpected bad consequence, the thing of the 

 future. And the smaller the overplus of evil consequences the more 

 most of us would vacillate. But neither of the two types of mind we 

 are contrasting would vacillate at all. The legal type of mind would 

 obey the past unhesitatingly, the creative would unhesitatingly sacri- 

 fice it to the future. The legal mind would say, "" they who break the 

 law at any point break it altogether," while the creative mind would 

 say, "let the dead past bury its dead." It is convenient to take my 

 illustration from the sphere of promises, l)ut it is in the realm of 

 sexual morality that the two methods are most acutely in coiiHict. 



And I would like to suggest that until you have definitely deter- 

 mined either to obey the real or imaginary imperatives of the past, or 

 to set yourself toward the demands of some ideal of the future, until 

 you have made up your mind to adhere to one or otiier of lli('s(> two 

 types of mental action in these matters, you are not e\(Mi within hope 

 of a sustained consistency in the thought that underlies your acts, that 

 in e\-ery issui^ ol' principle that comes upon you, you will be entirely 

 at the mei'cy 'of the intellectual mood that happens to be ascendant at 

 that particular mouKMit in your mind. 



In the sphere of pul)lic affairs als(^) these two ways of looking at 

 things work out into ecpially divergent and incomi)atible conseciuenees. 

 The legal mind insists u])on treati(»s, constitutions, legitimacies, ;ind 



