260 SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES 



aspect of the truth. They are, as a rule, more impressed 

 with the evils of Society than with the good which keeps 

 these evils in check. The poverty, the thoughtlessness, 

 the unhappiness, the listless helplessness of the many 

 thousands of their fellow-citizens arrest their attention and 

 move their feelings more readily than do the quiet, unob- 

 trusive, every-day virtues which, after all, characterize the 

 great multitude of well-doing men and women, and sustain 

 the concrete and more or less harmonious life of the society. 

 Hence the social prophets are generally too denunciatory 

 in their methods, and, not infrequently, have very little 

 hope for the future except in some radical change of our 

 laws and institutions. They desire some new beginning 

 for our social life under new conditions, or even upon some 

 entirely new basis. Nor can it be said that they are in 

 every sense wrong. There is no doubt that many of our 

 laws and institutions require to be changed. We desire 

 with great unanimity many reforms which we know not 

 how to bring about. So that in many respects the legis- 

 lative enactments lag behind the moral convictions and 

 purposes of the times. And these latter are never quite 

 secure until they are embodied in stable institutions and 

 fixed laws. 



Nevertheless, I think our social purposes would, on the 

 whole, be more sane if there existed a clearer consciousness 

 of the value of our laws and institutions ]ust as they stand ; 

 and that social reform would move more steadily if we 

 were more fully resolved to make the best of them. With- 

 out in the least denying the need for many changes, being 

 certain, rather, that a more fully moralized social life would 

 of itself bring many changes, I still believe that what is 

 'most to be desired is a larger volume of good work on 



