CHAPTER XIV

EFFECT OF THE TRANSITION FROM MINORITY TO MAJORITY RULE UPON MORALITY

In tracing the influence which the growth of democracy has had upon morality, we should be careful to look below the surface of present-day affairs. The deeper and more enduring social movements and tendencies are not always obvious to the superficial observer. For this reason much that has been written in recent years concerning our alleged decline in public morality is far from convincing. Facts tending to show the prevalence of fraud and corruption in politics and business are not in themselves sufficient to warrant any sweeping conclusions as to present tendencies. Paradoxical as it may seem, an increase in crime and other surface manifestations of immorality, is no proof of a decline, but may as a matter of fact be merely a transient effect of substantial and permanent advance toward higher standards of morality.

Before making any comparison between the morality of two different periods, we should first find out whether, in passing from the one period to the other, there has been any change in the

accepted ideas of right and wrong. Now, if such is the case, it is manifestly an important factor in the problem-one that should not be ignored; and yet this is just what many writers are doing who imagine that they are proving by statistics a decline in morality. Their error consists in overlooking the one fact of paramount importance, viz., that the accepted standard of morality has itself been raised. We are not judging conduct to-day according to the ideas of civic duty in vogue a century, or even a generation ago. We are insisting upon higher standards of conduct both in politics and in business. Our ideas of right and wrong in their manifold applications to social life have been profoundly changed, and in many respects for the better. We are trying to realize a new conception of justice. Many things which a century ago were sanctioned by law, or at least not forbidden, are no longer tolerated. Moreover, enlightened public opinion now condemns many things which have not yet been brought under the ban of the law.

During any period, such as that in which we are now living, when society is rapidly assuming a higher ethical type, it is inevitable that much resistance should be made to the enforcement of the new standard of justice. Old methods of business and old political practices are not easily repressed, even when the public opinion of the community has come to regard them as socially

injurious. Forms of conduct once permitted, but now regarded as anti-social, tend to persist in spite of the effort of law and public opinion to dislodge them. The more rapid the ethical progress of society, the more frequent and the more pronounced will be the failure of the morally backward individuals to meet the requirements of the new social standard. At such a time we always see an increase in crimes, misdemeanors and acts which enlightened public opinion condemns. This is due, however, not to any decline in public morality, but to the fact that the ethical progress of society as a whole has been more rapid than that of the offending class.

There is another source of error which we must guard against. Social immorality is not always detected even when it exists. Much that is

socially immoral both in politics and in business escapes observation. Nevertheless, the agencies for ferreting out and holding up to public condemnation offences against society, are far more efficient and active to-day than they have ever been in the past. Both the corrupt public official and the unscrupulous business man dread the searchlight of public opinion, which is becoming more and more effective as a regulator of conduct with the growth of intelligence among the masses. Nor is it surprising that when the hitherto dark recesses of politics and business are exposed to view, an alarming amount of fraud

and corruption should be revealed. We are too prone to forget, however, that publicity is something new-that in our day the seen may bear a much larger proportion to the unseen than it has in the past. What appears, then, to be an increase in business and political immorality may, after all, be largely accounted for as the result of more publicity. Here, again, we see that the facts usually taken to indicate a decline in public morality are susceptible of a very different interpretation.

Another feature of present-day society which deserves careful consideration by reason of its farreaching effect upon public morality is the change now taking place in theological beliefs. Heretofore the church has been by far the most important agency for enforcing conformity to the accepted moral standard. The hope of reward or fear of punishment in the world to come has been the chief support upon which the church has in the past rested its system of social control. But this other-world sanction is now losing its compelling force in consequence of the growing disbelief in the old doctrine of rewards and punishments. The fear of the supernatural, which has its highest development in the savage, steadily declines with the progress of the race. When the general level of intelligence is low, the supernatural sanction is a far more potent means of regulating conduct than any purely temporal

authority. But, just in proportion as society advances, the other-world sanction loses its potency and increasing reliance must, therefore, be placed upon purely human agencies.

The immediate effect of this change in our attitude toward the hereafter and the supernatural has been to remove or at least to weaken an important restraint upon anti-social tendencies. There is no reason, however, for apprehension as to the final outcome. Society always experiences some difficulty, it is true, in making the transition from the old to the new. In every period of social readjustment old institutions and beliefs lose their efficacy before the new social agencies have been perfected. But if the new is higher and better than the old, the good that will accrue to society will in the long run greatly outweigh any temporary evil.

But great as has been the change in our point of view with reference to the church, our attitude toward the state has been even more profoundly changed. We do not have to go very far back into the past to find government everywhere controlled by a king and privileged class. The ascendency of the few was everywhere established by the sword, but it could not be long maintained by force alone. The ignorance of the masses was in the past, as it is now, the main reliance of those who wished to perpetuate minority rule. Fraud and deception have always been an indispensable