CONSCIENCE such as together appeal to many diverse sides of my nature; they must involve me in nu merous and often conflicting social tasks; they can form one cause only in so far as they con stitute an entire system of causes. My loyalty will be subject, therefore, to the ancient diffi culty regarding the one and the many. Unless it is one in its ultimate aim, it will be no loyalty to universal loyalty; unless it is just to the va ried instincts and to the manifold social interests of a being such as I am, it cannot engross me. Despite this great difficulty, however, the loyal all about us show us that this union of one and many in life is, at least in great por tions of long human careers, a possible thing. We never completely win the union; we never realize to the full the one loyal life; but in so far as:ve are loyal, we win enough of this unity of life to be able to understand the ideal, and to make it our own guide. Our question still remains, however, this: Since the only loyal life that we can undertake to live is so complex, since the one cause of universal loyalty can only be served, by each of us, in a personal THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY life wherein we have to try to unify various spe cial loyalties, and since, in many cases, these special loyalties seem to us to conflict with one another, — how shall we decide, as between two apparently conflicting loyalties, which one to follow? Does our principle tell us what to do when loyalties thus seem to us to be in con flict with one another?
It is, of course, not sufficient to answer here that loyalty to loyalty requires us to do whatever can be done to harmonize apparently conflicting loyalties, and to remove the con flict of loyalties from the world, and to utilize even conflict, where it is inevitable, so as to further general loyalty. That answer we have already considered in an earlier passage of this discussion. It is a sound answer; but it does not meet those cases where conflict is forced upon us, and where we ourselves must take sides, and must annul or destroy one or two conflicting loyalties. One or two illustrations of such a type will serve to show what sorts of moral doubts our own philosophy of loyalty has especially to consider.
CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE At the outset of our Civil War, many men of the border states, and many who had already been in the service of the Union, but who were conscious of special personal duties to single states of the Union, found themselves in presence of a well-known conflict of loyalties. Consider the personal problem that the future General Lee had to solve. Could the precept,. Be loyal to loyalty, and to that end, choose your own personal cause and be loyal thereto, — could this principle, you may say, have been of any service in deciding for Lee his personal problem at the critical moment?
Or again, to take a problem such as some of my own students have more than once urged, in various instances, as a test case for my theory of loyalty to decide: A young woman, after a thorough modern professional training, begins a career which promises not only worldly success, but general good to the community in which she works. She is heartily loyal to her profession. It is a beneficent profession. She will probably make her mark in that field if she chooses to go on. Meanwhile she is loyal THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY to her own family. And into the home, which she has left for her work, disease, perhaps death, enters. Her younger brothers and sis ters are now unexpectedly in need of such care as hers; or the young family of her elder brother or sister, through the death of their father or mother, has come to be without due parental care. As elder sister or as maiden aunt this young woman could henceforth devote herself to family tasks that would mean very much for the little ones in question. But this devo tion would also mean years of complete absorp tion in these family tasks, and would also mean an entire abandonment of the profession so hopefully begun, and of all the good that she can now be fairly sure of doing if she continues in that field.
What are the dictates of conscience? How shall this young woman solve her problem? How shall she decide between these conflicting loyalties? To be loyal to the family, to the needs of brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, - surely this is indeed devotion of a self to a cause. But to be loyal to her chosen profes- CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE sion, which, in this case, is no mere hope, but which is already an actual and successful task, -is not that also loyalty to a cause? And does the principle, Be loyal to loyalty, decide which of these two causes is the one for this young woman to serve?
These two cases of conscience may serve as examples of the vast range of instances of a conflict of loyalties. And now you may ask: What will our principle do to decide such cases?
VII I reply at once by emphasizing the fact that the precept, Be loyal to loyalty, implies two char acteristics of loyal conduct which are, to my mind, inseparable. The first characteristic is Decisiveness on the part of the loyal moral agent. The second characteristic is Fidelity to loyal decisions once made, in so far as later insight does not clearly forbid the continuance of such fidelity. Let me indicate what I mean by these two characteristics.
Loyalty to loyalty is never a merely pious wish. It is personal devotion. This devotion THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY shows itself by action, not by mere sentiments. Loyalty to loyalty hence requires the choice of some definite mode of action. And this mode of action involves, in critical cases, some new choice of a personal cause, through which the loyal agent undertakes to serve henceforth, as best he can, the general cause of the loyalty of mankind. Now, my special choice of my personal cause is always fallible. For I can never know with certainty but that, if I were wiser, I should better see my way to serving universal loyalty than I now see it. Thus, if I choose to be loyal to loyalty by becoming a loyal clerk or a watchman or a lighthouse keeper, I can never know but that, in some other calling, I might have done better. Now, it is no part of the precept, Be loyal to loyalty, to tell me, or to pretend to tell me, what my most effective vocation is. Doubts about that topic are in so far not moral doubts. They are mere expressions of my general ignorance of the world and of my own powers. If I indeed hap pen to know that I have no power to make a good clerk or a good watchman, the precept CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE about loyalty then tells me that it would be dis loyal to waste my powers in an undertaking for which I am so unfit. If, of various possible ways of undertaking to be loyal to loyalty, my present insight already tells me that one will, in my case, certainly succeed best of all, then, indeed, the general principle of loyalty requires me to have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak save as this best mode of ser vice commands. But if, at the critical mo ment, I cannot predict which of two modes of serving the cause of loyalty to loyalty will lead to the more complete success in such service, the general principle certainly cannot tell me which of these two modes of service to choose. And, nevertheless, the principle does not desert me, even at the moment of my great est ignorance. It is still my guide. For it now becomes the principle, Have a cause; choose your cause; be decisive. In this form the principle is just as practical as it would be if my knowledge of the world and of my own powers were infallible. For it forbids coward ice; it forbids hesitancy beyond the point THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY where further consideration can be reason ably expected, for the present, to throw new light on the situation. It forbids me to play Hamlet's part. It requires me, in a loyal spirit and in the light of all that I now know, to choose and to proceed to action, not as one who believes himself omniscient, but as one who knows that the only way to be loyal is to act loyally, however ignorantly one has to act. Otherwise stated, the case is this. I hesi tate at the critical moment between conflicting causes. For the sake of loyalty to loyalty, which one of two conflicting special causes shall I henceforth undertake to serve? This is my question. If I knew what is to be the outcome, I could at once easily choose. I am ignorant of the outcome. In so far I indeed cannot tell which to choose. But in one respect I am, nevertheless, already com mitted. I have already undertaken to be loyal to loyalty. In so far, then, I already have my cause. If so, however, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak save as this my highest cause commands. Now, what CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE does this my highest cause, loyalty to loyalty, command? It commands simply but im peratively that, since I must serve, and since, at this critical moment, my only service must take the form of a choice between loyalties, I shall choose, even in my ignorance, what form my service is henceforth to take. The point where I am to make this choice is determined by the obvious fact that, after a certain waiting to find out whatever I can find out, I always reach the moment when further indecision would of itself constitute a sort of decision, — a decision, namely, to do nothing, and so not to serve at all. Such a decision to do nothing, my loyalty to loyalty forbids; and therefore my principle clearly says to me after a fair consideration of the case: Decide, knowingly if you can, ignorantly if you must, but in any case decide, and have no fear.
The duty of decisiveness as to one's loyalty is thus founded upon considerations analogous to those which Prof essor James has emphasized, in speaking of certain problems about belief in his justly famous essay on the Will to Be- THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY lieve. As soon as further indecision would itself practically amount to a decision to do nothing, — and so would mean a failure to be loyal to loyalty, — then at once decide. This is the only right act. If you cannot decide knowingly, put your own personal will into the matter, and thereupon decide ignorantly. For ignorant service, which still knows itself as a willing attempt to serve the cause of universal loyalty, is better than a knowing refusal to undertake any service whatever. The duty to decide is, in such cases, just that upon which our principle insists.
Decision, however, is meaningless unless it is to be followed up by persistently active loyalty. Having surrendered the self to the chosen special cause, loyalty, precisely as loyalty to loyalty, forbids you to destroy the unity of your own purposes, and to set the model of disloyalty before your fellows, by turning back from the cause once chosen, unless indeed later growth in knowledge makes mani fest that further service of that special cause would henceforth involve unquestionable dis- CONSCIENCE loyalty to universal loyalty. Fidelity to the cause once chosen is as obvious an aspect of a thorough devotion of the self to the cause of universal loyalty, as is decisiveness.
Only a growth in knowledge which makes it evident that the special cause once chosen is an unworthy cause, disloyal to universal loyalty, - only such a growth in knowledge can absolve from fidelity to the cause once chosen. In brief, the choice of a special personal cause is a sort of ethical marriage to this cause, with the exception that the duty to choose some personal cause is a duty for everybody, while marriage is not everybody's duty. The marriage to your cause is not to be dissolved unless it becomes unquestionably evident that the con tinuance of this marriage involves positive unfaithfulness to the cause of universal loyalty. But like any other marriage, the marriage of each self to its chosen personal cause is made in ignorance of the consequences. Decide, then, in the critical case, and, "forsaking all others, cleave to your own cause." Thus only can you be loyal to loyalty.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY If you once view the matter in this way, you will not suppose that our principle would leave either the future General Lee or our sup posed young professional woman without guid ance. It would say: Look first at the whole situation. Consider it carefully. See, if pos sible, whether you can predict the consequences to the general loyalty which your act will in volve. If, after such consideration, you still remain ignorant of decisive facts, then look to your highest loyalty; look steadfastly at the cause of universal loyalty itself. Remember how the loyal have always borne themselves. Then, with your eyes and your voice put as completely as may be at the service of that cause, arouse all the loyal interests of your own self, just as they now are, to their fullest vigor; and hereupon firmly and freely decide. Hence forth, with all your mind and soul and strength belong, fearlessly and faithfully, to the chosen personal cause until the issue is decided, or until you positively know that this cause can no longer be served without disloyalty. So act, and you are morally right.
CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE Now, that is how Lee acted. And that, too, is how all the loyal of our own Northern armies acted. And to-day we know how there was indeed loyalty to loyalty upon both sides, and how all those thus loyal actually served the one cause of the now united nation. They loyally shed their blood, North and South, that we might be free from their burden of hatred and of horror. Precisely so should the young woman of our ideal instance choose. It is utterly vain for another to tell her which she ought to choose, — her profession or her family. But it would be equally vain, and an insult to loyalty, lightly to say to her: Do as you please. One can say to her: Either of these lives, — the life of the successful servant of a profession, or the life of the devoted sister or aunt, — either, if loyally lived, is indeed a whole life. Nobody ought to ask for a more blessed lot than is either of these lives, — how ever obscure the household drudgery of the one may be, however hard beset by cares the worldly success of the other may prove, or however toilsome either of them in prospect is, THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY so long as either is faithfully lived out in full devotion. For nobody has anything better than loyalty, or can get anything better. But one of them alone can you live. No mortal knows which is the better for your world. With all your heart, in the name of universal loyalty, choose. And then be faithful to the choice. So shall it be morally well with you.
Now, if this view of the application of our precept is right, you see how our principle is just to that mysterious and personal aspect of conscience upon which common sense insists. Such a loyal choice as I have described de mands, of course, one's will, — one's conscious decisiveness. It also calls out all of one's personal and more or less unconsciously pres ent instincts, interests, affections, one's socially formed habits, and whatever else is woven into the unity of each individual self. Loyalty, as we have all along seen, is a willing devotion. Since it is willing, it involves conscious choice. Since it is devotion, it involves all the mysterv of finding out that some cause awakens us, CONSCIENCE CONSCIENCE fascinates us, reverberates through our whole being, possesses us. It is a fact that critical decisions as to the direction of our loyalty can be determined by our own choice. It is also a fact that loyalty involves more than mere conscious choice. It involves that response of our entire nature, conscious and unconscious, which makes loyalty so precious. Now, this response of the whole nature of the self, when the result is a moral decision, is what common sense has in mind when it views our moral de cisions as due to our conscience, but our con science as a mysterious higher or deeper self. As a fact, the conscience is the ideal of the self, coming to consciousness as a present com mand. It says, Be loyal. If one asks, Loyal to what? the conscience, awakened by our whole personal response to the need of man kind replies, Be loyal to loyalty. If, hereupon, various loyalties seem to conflict, the conscience says: Decide. If one asks, How decide? conscience further urges, Decide as /, your conscience, the ideal expression of your whole personal nature, conscious and unconscious, THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY find best. If one persists, But you and I may be wrong, the last word of conscience is, We are fallible, but we can be decisive and faith ful; and this is loyalty.
SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS IN THEIR RELATION TO LOYALTY LECTURE V SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS IN THEIR RELATION TO LOYALTY IN the philosophy of loyalty, whose general statement has been contained in the fore going lectures, I have made an effort to recon cile the conception of loyalty with that of a rational and moral individualism. To every ethical individualist I have said: In loyalty alone is the fulfilment of the reasonable pur poses of your individualism. If you want true freedom, seek it in loyalty. If you want j self-expression, spirituality, moral autonomy, loyalty alone can give you these goods. But equally I have insisted upon interpreting loyalty in terms that emphasize the significance of the individual choice of that personal cause to which one is to be loyal. This evening, as I approach the application of our philosophy of loyalty to some well-known American prob- THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY lems, it is important for us to bear in mind from the outset this synthesis of individualism and loyalty which constitutes our whole ethical doctrine.
I The traditional view of loyalty has associated the term, in the minds of most of you, with moral situations in which some external social power predetermines for the individual, with out his consent, all the causes to which he ought to be loyal. Loyalty so conceived ap pears to be opposed to individual liberty. But in our philosophy of loyalty there is only one cause which is rationally and absolutely determined for the individual as the right cause for him as for everybody, — this is the general cause defined by the phrase loyalty to loyalty. The way in which any one man is to show his loyalty to loyalty is, however, in our phi losophy of loyalty, something which varies end lessly with the individual, and which can never be precisely defined except by and through his personal consent. I can be loyal to loyalty only in my own fashion, and by serving my SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS own special personal system of causes. How wide a range of moral freedom of conscience this fact gives me, we began at the last time to see. In order to make that fact still clearer, let me sum up our moral code afresh, and in another order than the one used at the last time.
As our philosophy of loyalty states the case, the moral law is: (1) be loyal; (2) to that end have a special cause or a system of causes which shall constitute your personal object of loyalty, your business in life; (3) choose this cause, in the first place, for your self, but decisively, and so far as the general principle of loyalty permits, remain faithful to this chosen cause, until the work that you can do for it is done; and (4) the general principle of loyalty to which all special choices of one's cause are subject, is the principle: Be loyal to loyalty, that is, do what you can to produce a maximum of the devoted ser vice of causes, a maximum of fidelity, and of selves that choose and serve fitting objects of loyalty.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY From the point of view of this statement of the moral law, we are all in the wrong in case we have no cause whatever to which we are loyal. If you are an individualist in the sense that you are loyal to nothing, you are certainly false to your duty. Furthermore, in order that you should be loyal at all, the cause to which you are loyal must involve the union of various persons by means of some social tie, which has in some respects an impersonal or superindividual character, as well as a distinct personal interest for each of the persons con cerned.
On the other hand, my statement of the moral principle gives to us all an extremely limited right to judge what the causes are to which any one of our neighbors ought to devote himself. Having defined loyalty as I have done as a devotion to a cause, outside the pri vate self, and yet chosen by this individual self as his cause; having pointed out the general nature which such a cause must possess in order to be worthy, — namely, having shown that it must involve the mentioned union of SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS personal and impersonal interests; having, furthermore, asserted that all rightly chosen loyalty is guided by the intent not to enter into any unnecessary destruction of the loyalty of others, but is inspired by loyalty to loyalty, and so seeks, as best the loyal individual can, to further loyalty as a common good for all mankind, — having said so much, I must, from my point of view, leave to the individual the decision as to the choice of the cause or causes to which he is loyal, subject only to these mentioned conditions. I have very little right to judge, except by the most unmistakable expression of my fellow's purpose, whether he is actually loyal, in the sense of my definition, or not.
I may say of a given person that I do not understand to what cause he is loyal. But I can assert that he is disloyal only when I know what cause it is to which he has committed himself, and what it is that he has done to be false to his chosen fidelity. Or again, I can judge that he lacks loyalty if he makes it per fectly evident by his acts or by his own con- THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY fessions that he has chosen no cause at all. If he is unquestionably loyal to something, to his country or to his profession or to his family, I may criticise his expression of loyalty, in so far as I clearly see that it involves him in unnecessary assault upon the loyalty of others, or upon their means to be loyal. Thus, all unnecessary personal aggression upon what we commonly call the rights of other individuals are excluded by my formula, simply because in case I deprive my fellow of his property, his life, or his physical integrity, I take away from him the only means whereby he can ex press in a practical way whatever loyalty he has. Hence such aggression, unless necessary, involves disloyalty to the general loyalty of mankind, is a crime against humanity at large, and is inconsistent with any form of loyalty. Such is the range of judgment that we have a right to use in our moral estimates of other people. The range thus indicated is, as I have insisted, large enough to enable us to define all rationally defensible special prin ciples regarding right and wrong acts. Mur- SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS der, lying, evil speaking, unkindness, are from this point of view simply forms of dis loyalty.
But my right to judge the choices of my fellow is thus very sharply limited. I cannot say that he is disloyal because his personal cause is not my cause, or because I have no sympathy with the objects to which he devotes himself. I have no right to call him disloyal because I should find that if I were to do what he does, I should indeed be disloyal to causes that I accept. I may not judge a man to be without an object of loyalty merely because I do not understand what the object is with which he busies himself. I may regard his cause as too narrow, if I clearly see that he could do better service than he does to the cause of universal loyalty. But when I ob serve how much even the plainest and humblest of the loyal sometimes unconsciously do to help others to profit by the contagion of their own loyalty, by the example of their faithfulness, I must be cautious about judging another man's cause to be too narrow. You cannot THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY easily set limits to the occupations that the sin cere choice of somebody will make expressions of genuine loyalty. The loyal individual may live largely alone; or mainly in company. His life may be spent in the office or in the study or in the workshop or in the field; in arctic exploration, in philanthropy, in a laboratory. And yet the true form and spirit of loyalty, and of loyalty to loyalty, when once you get an actual understanding of the purposes of the self that is in question, is universal and un mistakable.
I hesitate, therefore, to decide for another person even such a question as the way in which his most natural and obvious opportunities for loyalty shall be used. It is true that nature furnishes to us all opportunities for loyalty which it seems absurd to neglect. Charity, as they say, begins at home. Still more obvi ously does loyalty naturally begin at home. People who wholly neglect their natural family ties often thereby make probable that they are disloyal people. Yet the well-known word about hating father and mother in the service SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS of a universal cause paradoxically states a possibility to which the history of the early Christian martyrs more than once gave an actual embodiment. If the martyr might break loose from all family ties in his loyal ser vice of his faith, one cannot attempt to deter mine for another person at just what point the neglect of a naturally present opportunity for loyalty becomes an inevitable incident of the choice of loyalty that one has made. Nature, after all, furnishes us merely our opportuni ties to be loyal. Some of these must be used. None of them may be so ignored that thereby we deliberately increase the disloyalty of mankind. But the individual retains the inalienable duty, which nobody, not even his most pious critical neighbor, can either perform or wholly judge for him, — the duty to decide wherein his own loyalty lies. Yet the duty to be loyal to loyalty is absolutely universal and rigid.
As we also saw at the last time, since fidelity and loyalty are indeed inseparable, the break ing of the once plighted faith is always a dis- THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY loyal act, unless the discovery that the original undertaking involves one in disloyalty to the general cause of loyalty requires the change. Thus, indeed, the once awakened and so far loyal member of the robber band would be bound by his newly discovered loyalty to hu manity in general, to break his oath to the band. But even in such a case, he would still owe to his comrades of the former service a kind of fidelity which he would not have owed had he never been a member of the band. His duty to his former comrades would change through his new insight. But he could never ignore his former loyalty, and would never be absolved from the peculiar obligation to his former comrades, — the obligation to help them all to a higher service of humanity than they had so far attained.
You see, from this point of view, how the requirements of the spirit of loyalty are in one sense perfectly stern and unyielding, while in another sense they are and must be capable of great freedom of interpretation. In judg ing myself, in deciding how I can best be loyal SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS to loyalty, in deciding what special causes they are through which I am to express my loyalty, in judging whether my act is justified by my loyalty, — in all these respects I must be with myself, at least in principle, entirely rigid. As I grow in knowledge, I shall better learn how to be loyal. I shall learn to serve new causes, to recover from vain attempts at a service of which I was incapable, and in general to be come a better servant of the cause. But at each point of my choice my obligation to be loyal, to have a cause, to have for the purposes of voluntary conduct no eyes and ears and voice save as this cause directs, — this obligation is absolute. I cannot excuse myself from it with out being false to my own purpose. I may sleep or be slothful, but precisely in so far as such relaxation fits me for work. I may amuse myself, but because amusement is again a necessary preliminary to or accompani ment of loyal service. I may seek my private advantage, but only in so far as, since I am an instrument of my cause, it is indeed my duty, and is consistent with my loyalty, to furnish to THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY the cause an effective instrument. But the general principle remains: Working or idle, asleep or awake, joyous or sorrowful, thoughtful or apparently careless, at critical moments, or when engaged in the most mechanical routine, in so far as my will can determine what I am, I must be whatever my loyalty requires me to be. And in so far my voluntary life is from my point of view a topic for judgments which are in principle perfectly determinate.
Profoundly different must be my judgment in case of my estimate of the loyalty of my fellow. The tasks of mankind are not only common but also individual. So long as you are sure of your own loyalty, and do not break your trust, I cannot judge that you are actually disloyal. I can only judge in some respects whether your loyalty is or is not enlightened, is or is not successful, is or is not in unneces sary conflict with the loyalty of others. I have to be extremely wary of deciding what the loyalty of others demands of them. But this I certainly know, that if a man has made no choice for himself of the cause that he serves, SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS he is not yet come to his rational self, he has not yet found his business as a moral agent.
II Such are our general results regarding the nature of loyalty as an ethical principle. This complete synthesis of loyalty with a rational individualism must be borne in mind as we attempt a certain practical application of these principles to the problem of our present American life. If there is any truth in the foregoing, then our concept especially helps us in trying to define what it is that we most need in the social life of a democracy, and what means we have of doing something to satisfy the moral needs of our American community, while leaving the liberties of the people intact.
Liberty without loyalty — of what worth, if the foregoing principles are sound, could such liberty be to any people? And yet, if you recall the protest of my young friend, the Rus sian immigrant's son, as cited to you in a for mer lecture, you will be reminded of the great task that now lies before our American people, THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOYALTY — the task of teaching millions of foreign birth and descent to understand and to bear con stantly in mind the value of loyalty, the task also of keeping our own loyalty intact in the presence of those enormous complica tions of social life which the vastness of our country, and the numbers of our foreign immi grants are constantly increasing. The prob lem here in question is not merely the problem of giving instruction in the duties of citizenship to those to whom our country is new, nor yet of awakening and preserving patriotism. It is the problem of keeping alive what we now know to be the central principle of the moral life in a population which is constantly being altered by new arrivals, and unsettled by great social changes.
If you recall what was said in our former lecture regarding modern individualism in general, you will also see that our American immigration problem is only one aspect of a world-wide need of moral enlightenment, — a need characteristic of our time. One is tempted to adapt Lincoln's great words, and SOME AMERICAN PROBLEMS to say that in all nations, but particularly in America, we need in this day to work together to the end that loyalty of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.