A clearer insight into its teleological necessity,
the purpose it exists to serve, will direct us in our efforts to revise
it, so to fashion it as to make it productive of still greater good
in the time to come. But if we discard it altogether, we are "like
the base Indian" who "threw a pearl away, Richer than all his tribe."
What we need is not to abandon but to steadily improve our code; and
whereas any one can pick flaws, only the man of trained mind and
controlled desire can discover feasible lines of advance. "When all
is said, there is nothing as yet to be changed in our old Aryan ideal
of justice, conscientiousness, courage, kindness, and honor. We have
only to draw nearer to it, to clasp it more closely, to realize it
more effectively; and, before going beyond it, we have still a long
and noble road to travel beneath the stars." [Footnote: Maeterlinck,
"Our Anxious Morality," in The Measure of the Hours.] The conception
of morality as the organization of interests will be found in Plato's
Republic and Aristotle's Ethics, and in many recent ethical books and
papers. Among them are R. B. Perry's Moral Economy, G. Santayana's
Reason in Science (chap. IX); William James, "The Moral Philosopher
and the Moral Life" (in the Will to Believe and Other Essays).
A discussion of whether morality really makes for happiness will be
found in Leslie Stephen, System of Ethics, chap. X; W. L. Sheldon,
An Ethical Movement, chap.
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