Such injustices
are inevitable where custom has unchecked sway. The general aim and
result may be very salutary, but the application is too sweeping, and
brings suffering to many unfortunate individuals, or to the community
as a whole, by its indiscrimination.
(2) But even in its general result custom may be harmful. Morals have
developed blindly, as we have seen, through all sorts of irrational
influences, swayed this way by class interest, by rulers or priests,
veered that way by superstition, passion, and stupidity. Morality has
not understood itself; and the natural forces which have developed
it into its enormous usefulness have not always weeded out the baneful
elements. The persecution of heretics was sheer mistake, but it was
acceded to by practically the entire Church in the Middle Ages, and
practiced with utter conscientiousness. The hostility of the Puritans
to music and art was pure folly, though it seemed to them their grim
duty.
(3) New situations are continually arising, new sins appearing.
Conventional morality, while sometimes over-severe against old and
well-recognized sins, lags far behind in its branding of the newer
forms. The evils arising from the modern congestion of population,
the unscrupulousness of modern business, the selfishness of politicians,
the servility of newspapers to the "interests" and to advertisers,
for example, find too little reprobation in our established moral codes.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87