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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 863 



and not by rejecting it. The spirit tri- 

 umphs, not by destroying the chaos that 

 James describes, but by brooding upon the 

 face of the deep until the light comes, and 

 with light, order. But I am sure also that 

 we shall always have to reckon with 

 James's view. And I am sure also that 

 only an American thinker could have writ- 

 ten this survej', with all its unconventional 

 ardor of appreciation, with all its demo- 

 cratic catholicity of sjnnpathy, with all its 

 freedom both from ecclesiastical formality 

 and from barren free thinking. I am sure 

 also that no book has better expressed the 

 whole spirit of hopeful unrest, of eagerness 

 to be just to the modern view of life, of 

 longing for new experience, which charac- 

 terizes the recent American religious move- 

 ment. In James's book then the deeper 

 spirit of our national religious life has 

 found its most manifold and characteristic 

 expression. 



Ill 



I must next turn to the other of the two 

 aspects of James's work as a thinker that 

 I mentioned above, namely to his ethical 

 influence. Since the war ovir transformed 

 and restless people has been seeking not 

 only for religious, but for moral guidance. 

 What are the principles that can show us 

 the course to follow in the often pathless 

 wilderness of the new democracj^? It fre- 

 quentlj^ seems as if, in every crisis of our 

 greater social affairs we needed somebod.y 

 to tell lis both our dream and the inter- 

 pretation thereof. We are eager to have 

 life, and that abundantly. But what life 1 

 And by what test shall we know the way 

 of life? 



The ethical maxims that most readily 

 meet the popular demand for guidance in 

 such a country, and at such a time, are 

 maxims that combine attractive vagueness 

 with an equally winning pungency. They 

 must seem obviously practical; but must 



not appear excessively rigorous. They 

 must arouse a large enthusiasm for action, 

 without baffling us with the sense of re- 

 straint, or of wearisome self-control. They 

 must not call for extended reflection. 

 Despite their vagueness they must not ap- 

 pear absti'act, nor yet hard to grasp. The 

 wayfaring man, though a fool, must be 

 sure that he at least will not err in apply- 

 ing our moral law. Moral blunders must 

 be natural only to opponents, not to our- 

 selves. We must be self-confident. More- 

 over, our moral law must have an athletic 

 sound. Its first office is to make its "good 

 sports." Only upon such a law can we 

 meditate day and night, in case the 

 "game" leaves us indeed any time for 

 meditation at all. Nevertheless, these pop- 

 izlar maxims will of course not be meant 

 as mere expressions of blind impulse. On 

 the contrary, they will appeal to highly 

 intelligent minds, but to minds anxious for 

 relief from the responsibilitj^ of being too 

 thoughtful. In order to be easily popular 

 thej^ must be maxims that stir the heart, 

 not precisely indeed like the sound of a 

 trumpet, but more like the call of the horn 

 of an automobile. You will have in mind 

 the watchwords that express some of the 

 popular ethical counsels thus suggested. 

 One of these watchwords has of late en- 

 abled us to abbreviate a well-known and 

 surely a highly intelligent maxim, to 

 something that is to-day used almost as a 

 mere injection. It is the watchword, 

 "Efficiency"! Another expression of the 

 same motive takes shape in the eqiially 

 familiar advice, "Play the game." 



Now I do not mean to make light of the 

 real significance of just such moral max- 

 ims, for awakening and inspiring just our 

 people in this day. The true value of 

 these maxims lies for us in three of 

 their characteristic features. First, they 

 give us counsel that is in any case opposed 



