The Philosophy of Loyalty

lesson will be this : In loyalty, when loyalty is N >Jf properly defined, is the fulfilment of the whole moral law. You can truthfully centre your en tire moral world about a rational conception of loyalty. Justice, charity, industry, wisdom, spirituality, are all definable in terms of enlightened loyalty. And, as I shall maintain, this very way of viewing the moral world this deliberate centralization of all the duties and of all the virtues about the one conception of rational loyalty — is of great service as a means of clarifying and simplifying the tangled moral problems of our lives and of our age. Thus, then, I state the task which our title is intended to set before us. The rest of this opening lecture must be devoted to clearing our way — and to a merely preliminary and tentative view of our topic. I must first at tempt a partial and provisional definition of the term "loyalty" as I shall use that term. I wish that I could begin with a final and ade quate definition; but I cannot. Why I can not, you will see in later lectures. At the mo ment I shall try to direct your minds, as well as I can, merely to some of the features that are essential to my conception of loyalty. Ill Loyalty shall mean, according to this .pre^ liminary definition : The willing and practical