Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variationsin hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling andpunctuation remains unchanged.
The cover was prepared by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
AN ETHICALPHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
PRESENTED IN ITS MAIN OUTLINES
BY
FELIX ADLER
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORKLONDON
1920
Copyright, 1918, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
v
PREFACE
This book records a philosophy of life growing out of theexperience of a lifetime. The convictions put in it are not dogmatic,for dogma is the conviction of one man imposed authoritativelyupon others. The convictions herein expounded aresubmitted to those who search, as the writer has searched, forlight on the problems of life, in order that they may comparetheir experience with his, and their interpretations of their experiencewith his interpretation.1
It is a great hope that some of the readers of this book mayfind the general world-view expounded congenial, and for themalso real and true. It is believed that others may find thepractical suggestions as to the conduct of life in which thetheory issues helpful in part, if not in whole, as many of usaccept from the teachings of the Stoics, or of other thinkers,practical precepts, without on that account adopting thephilosophy from which these precepts are derived.
The book is divided into four parts: the first an autobiographicalintroduction describing the various stations on theroad by which the author arrived at his present position, andoffering incidental appreciations and appraisements of theHebrew religion, of Emerson, of the ethics of the Gospels, ofSocialism and of other social reform movements.
The second part expounds the philosophical theory.
The third part contains the applications of the theory to themore strictly personal life, under the captions of the ThreeviShadows of Sickness, Sorrow and Sin, and also to the principalso-called Rights to Life, Property, Reputation.
The fourth part applies the theory to the social institutions,to the Family, the Vocation, the State, the International Society,and the Church, these institutions being considered as anexpanding series through which the individual is to pass on hispilgrimage in the direction of the supreme spiritual end.
The principal problems considered are:
1. How to establish the fundamental ethical dictum thatevery human being ought to count, and is intrinsically worthwhile. This dictum has been denied by many of the greatestthinkers, who assert the intrinsic inferiority of some men, theintrinsic superiority of others. The practice of the world alsoruns most distinctly contrary to it. How then is it to bevalidated?
2. The problem of how to attach a precise meaning to theterm “spiritual,” thereby divesting it of the flavor of sentimentalityand vagueness that attaches to it.
3. How to link up the world’s activities in science, art,politics, business, to the supreme ethical end.
4. How to lay foundations whereon to erect the convictionthat there verily is a supersensible reality.
For the repetitions that occur throughout the volume indulgence