it to the problems of a developing national life are excellent illustrations of casuistry in the sphere of law.1

But given a situation in which no provision is made for this necessary accommodation of general principles to the new issues as they arise in the course of social evolution, where moral science consists simply in elucidating and applying to new problems ethical principles laid down authoritatively once for all, and we have a phase of casuistry incompatible with a sane and healthful moral life. In such a situation one of two things usually happens. We may have the creation of an interminable series of rules and detailed exceptions intended to adapt these general and unalterable principles to the changing social order. The tendency of this is to make of ethics mere moral quibbling. More often we find that men hold on to the external form and letter while as a matter of fact they read into them ideas utterly foreign to their original meaning. This results in creating an atmosphere of intellectual dishonesty. Both of these tendencies have contributed their part to the traditional atmosphere of suspicion associated with the term casuistry.

The thoroughly institutionalized conscience cannot escape from casuistry of the objectionable type. The institution, with its claim to finality, is forced to find the justification of the means in the end. It must compromise with the facts or lose its hold upon the loyalties of men. For from the institutional point of view a dogma exists to be believed, a law is on the statute books to be enforced, a belief must find support in the existing facts. So long as this view is maintained rather than the pragmatic notion that the value of the institution lies in the furthering of human interests, the facilitating of needed adjustments and the elimination of friction, the moral life will be sacrificed to the institution.

1 See Mecklin, Democracy and Race Friction, Ch. 8.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Books: BALDWIN, J. M.: The Individual and Society, 1911; BOSANQUET, B.: The Philosophical Theory of the State, pp. 170 f., 296 f.; COOLEY, C. H.: Social Organization, Chs. 28-32; DEWEY AND TUFTS: Ethics, pp. 192 ff, 427 ff.: FITE, W.: Individualism, 1916; McIVER, R. M.: Community, pp. 149 ff.; STEPHEN, L.: The Science of Ethics, Ch. III; WARD, L. F.: Pure Sociology, pp. 184 ff.

2. Articles: LLOYD, A.: "The Institution and Some of Its Original Sins." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 13, pp. 523 ff.; McDougall: "The Social Basis of Individuality." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 18, pp. 1 ff.; STOOPS, J. S.: "The Institutional Self." International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 23, pp. 193 ff.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HOME

§ I. THE INSTINCTIVE BASIS OF THE HOME

THE Social psychologist has called attention to the fundamental position occupied by the family instincts in the development of the higher forms of civilization. "It is probable", says McDougall, "that these two instincts in conjunction, the reproductive and the parental instincts, directly impel human beings to a greater sum of activity, effort, and toil, than all the other motives of human action taken together "1 These instincts and their emotional accompaniments provide the raw material from which are sprung those benevolent impulses that find expression in the humanizing of war, the erection of hospitals for the relief of disease and suffering, the laws to protect the child in industry, the regulations safeguarding women workers, as well as the measures to protect dumb animals. The sentiments born of the tender emotions centering around the home, the mother and the child have moved men to embark on great struggles for social justice as in the case of the abolition of slavery, both in its older form of chattel slavery and in its modern form of the white slave traffic. It has been contended that one secret of the hold of the Christian faith upon the hearts of men is to be found in the central place it gives to the family. The beautiful cult of the Mother and the Child is not among the least of the elements in the Roman Catholic faith enabling it to keep the loyalties of men of every race for centuries. The appeal of das Ewig Weibliche is rooted in the powerful instincts that find expression through the family.

In facing the exceedingly complex and difficult problems 1 Social Psychology, p. 269.

that center around the status of woman and the home in modern society it is well to remember, therefore, that back of external social phenomena, pathological, or otherwise, lie these human instincts that cannot be eliminated or ignored. Our highly rationalized modern order, with its machine process, its impersonal pecuniary economy, its anarchistic individualism that poses as the last word on democracy and freedom, is after all a very recent phase of social evolution. Long before pure reason had ever aspired to direct the course of human life with calm indifference to the demands of instinct and emotion the family had arisen as the chosen instrument for giving expression to instinctive needs. We have stripped the family of its religious sanctions, permitted the machine process to disintegrate its ancient bonds, while attempting weakly to substitute the pale abstractions of a socialized democracy as the safeguard of its integrity.

It may be true, as writers have alleged, that this instinctive basis of the family is growing weaker and that it must be held together in the future by other ties. Even granting this contention, for which it must be confessed there seems to be little tangible evidence, the process of social selection seems of such a character as to correct such a decay of the parental instincts. For in the case of individual variations where this instinct is weak these individuals tend to eliminate themselves owing to the fact that they have fewer children than those in whom the parental instinct is strong. Finally, it is argued that culture itself is inimical to the instincts and often makes for their repression. It seems a fair inference to many that those groups which have cast off the supernatural and traditional sanctions for the home-and tend to subject the instincts to the inhibitory influence of pure thought are in danger of eliminating themselves or at least of placing themselves at a decided advantage in competition with the less sophisticated groups in the community in whom the parental instincts function more unrestrainedly. The problem. of the family in American society to-day is not merely a question as to whether we can substitute rationally thought

out sanctions for the more or less irrational urge of the parental and reproductive instincts. It is a question as to whether we can vest in an enlightened public sentiment those sanctions for the family once provided by religion, law, and custom.

§ 2. THE COLONIAL HOME

It has been contended that the English colonization of America was more successful than that of the Latin countries because it was based upon the home. Certainly the maturity and stability of the New England colonies was due in no small degree to the fact that they transferred to the wilderness the home traditions of the mother country. The poor success of the early settlers in Virginia arose from the fact that they were to a large extent homeless adventurers who came to the New World to make their fortunes. It was Sir Edwin Sandys, director of the Virginia Colony, who detected the cause of the discontent and failure. "We must find them wives, in order that they may feel at home in Virginia". The ninety girls brought over to fill the gap in homeless and loveless lives provide one of the romantic incidents of early colonial history which has been skilfully exploited by an American novelist.2

While the home was central in the life of the American colonist there was considerable variety in the types of home life. New England with its homogeneous population and its Hebraistic conceptions of the family gotten from Calvinism was different from Virginia with its more liberal Anglicanism. In New England the church overshadowed the home and did not hesitate to interfere with its seclusion and intimacy in the interest of religion. In Virginia the home tended to absorb the functions both of church and school. The Virginia home, based upon the plantation and shut off from other homes, was far more of an economic and social

1 I am greatly indebted in this and the following sections to the material on the American home gathered by Mr. Arthur W. Calhoun, in his monumental work, A Social History of the American Family. See also Goodsell, The Family as a Social and Educational Institution, Čhs. X-XIV. 2 Mary Johnson, To Have and to Hold.