A Preface to Morals — Walter Lippmann
A preface to morals | Project Gutenberg You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : A preface to morals Author : Walter Lippmann Release date : October 9, 2025 [eBook #77019] Language : English Original publication : New York: The Macmillan Company, 1929 Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77019 Credits : Sean/IB@DP A preface to morals | Project Gutenberg WALTER LIPPMANN A PREFACE TO MORALS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK MCMXXIX Copyright , 1929. By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1929. First printing All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Printed in the United States of America by J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK A preface to morals | Project Gutenberg CONTENTS PART I THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ANCESTRAL ORDER Chapter Page I. The Problem of Unbelief 3 1. Whirl is King 3 2. False Prophecies 5 3. Sorties and Retreats 10 4. Deep Dissolution 14 II. God in the Modern World 21 1. Imago Dei 21 2. An Indefinite God 23 3. God in More Senses Than One 25 4. The Protest of the Fundamentalists 30 5. In Man’s Image 35 III. The Loss of Certainty 37 1. Ways of Reading the Bible 37 2. Modernism: Immortality as an Example 40 3. What Modernism Leaves Out 48 IV. The Acids of Modernity 51 1. The Kingly Pattern 51 2. Landmarks 56 3. Barren Ground 61 4. Sophisticated Violence 63 5. Rulers 65 V. The Breakdown of Authority 68 1. God’s Government 68 2. The Doctrine of the Keys 71 3. The Logic of Toleration 74 4. A Working Compromise 76 5. The Effect of Patriotism 78 6. The Dissolution of a Sovereignty 82 VI. Lost Provinces 84 1. Business 84 2. The Family 88 3. Art 94 a. The Disappearance of Religious Painting 94 b. The Loss of a Heritage 96 c. The Artist Formerly 98 d. The Artist as a Prophet 101 e. Art for Art’s Sake 104 f. The Burden of Originality 106 VII. The Drama of Destiny 112 1. The Soul in the Modern World 112 2. The Great Scenario 115 3. Earmarks of Truth 118 4. On Reconciling Religion and Science 121 5. Gospels of Science 125 6. The Deeper Conflict 131 7. Theocracy and Humanism 133 PART II THE FOUNDATIONS OF HUMANISM Introduction 143 VIII. Golden Memories 145 IX. The Insight of Humanism 152 1. The Two Approaches to Life 152 2. Freedom and Restraint 153 3. The Ascetic Principle 158 4. Oscillation between Two Principles 164 5. The Golden Mean and Its Difficulties 166 6. The Matrix of Humanism 171 7. The Career of the Soul 175 8. The Passage into Maturity 183 9. The Function of High Religion 191 X. High Religion and the Modern World 194 1. Popular Religion and the Great Teachers 194 2. The Aristocratic Principle 197 3. The Peculiarity of the Modern Situation 200 4. The Stone Which the Builders Rejected 203 PART III THE GENIUS OF MODERNITY XI. The Cure of Souls 213 1. The Problem of Evil 213 2. Superstition and Self-Consciousness 217 3. Virtue 221 4. From Clue to Practice 226 XII. The Business of the Great Society 232 1. The Invention of Invention 232 2. The Creative Principle in Modernity 235 3. Naive Capitalism 241 4. The Credo of Old-Style Business 244 5. Old-Style Reform and Revolution 247 6. The Diffusion of the Acquisitive Instinct 252 7. Ideals 257 XIII. Government in the Great Society 260 1. Loyalty 260 2. The Evolution of Loyalty 263 3. Pluralism 267 4. Live and Let Live 269 5. Government in the People 272 6. Politicians and Statesmen 279 XIV. Love in the Great Society 284 1. The External Control of Sexual Conduct 284 2. Birth Control 288 3. The Logic of Birth Control 293 4. The Use of Convention 299 5. The New Hedonism 301 6. Marriage and Affinity 307 7. The Schooling of Desire 311 XV. The Moralist in an Unbelieving World 314 1. The Declaration of Ideals 314 2. The Choice of a Way 320 3. The Religion of the Spirit 326 Appendix: Acknowledgments and Notes 331 Index 339 A preface to morals | Project Gutenberg PART I THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ANCESTRAL ORDER “Whirl is King, having driven out Zeus.” Aristophanes. A preface to morals | Project Gutenberg A PREFACE TO MORALS A preface to morals | Project Gutenberg CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF UNBELIEF 1. Whirl is King Among those who no longer believe in the religion of their fathers, some are proudly defiant, and many are indifferent. But there are also a few, perhaps an increasing number, who feel that there is a vacancy in their lives. This inquiry deals with their problem. It is not intended to disturb the serenity of those who are unshaken in the faith they hold, and it is not concerned with those who are still exhilarated by their escape from some stale orthodoxy. It is concerned with those who are perplexed by the consequences of their own irreligion. It deals with the problem of unbelief, not as believers are accustomed to deal with it, in the spirit of men confidently calling the lost sheep back into the fold, but as unbelievers themselves must, I think, face the problem if they face it candidly and without presumption. When such men put their feelings into words they are likely to say that, having lost their faith, they have lost the certainty that their lives are significant, and that it matters what they do with their lives. If they deal with young people they are likely to say that they know of no compelling reason which certifies the moral code they adhere to, and that, therefore, their own preferences, when tested by the ruthless curiosity of their children, seem to have no sure foundation of any kind. They are likely to point to the world about them, and to ask whether the modern man possesses any criterion by which he can measure the value of his own desires, whether there is any standard he really believes in which permits him to put a term upon that pursuit of money, of power, and of excit