A Vision of the Future, Based on the Application of Ethical Principles — Jane Hume Clapperton
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 Vision of the Future, Based on the Application of Ethical Principles Author : Jane Hume Clapperton Release date : February 21, 2022 [eBook #67463] Most recently updated: October 18, 2024 Language : English Original publication : United Kingdom: Swan Sonnenschein, 1904 Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67463 Credits : Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) *** START OF Crown 8vo, 443 pp., price 8/6. Scientific Meliorism and the Evolution of Happiness. “In the Author we recognize an advanced thinker of a rare and high order.”— Westminster Review. “We earnestly advise all to read this admirable book.”— Weekly Despatch. KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., LONDON. Crown 8vo, 207 pp., cheap edition 6 d. Margaret Dunmore or A Socialist Home. “The story in the life in La Maison is very well told.”— Literary World. “In the chapter on Unselfish Love there are some sound and sensible views which might well be adopted without waiting for the advent of The Unitary Home.”— Times. “Decidedly entertaining.”— Manchester Examiner. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON. A VISION OF THE FUTURE BASED ON The Application of Ethical Principles By JANE HUME CLAPPERTON AUTHOR OF “SCIENTIFIC MELIORISM”, “MARGARET DUNMORE”, ETC. “ HITCH YOUR WAGON TO A STAR ” — Emerson. LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIMITED PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1904 TO MY FRIEND GEORGE ARTHUR GASKELL In 1885 I published in London a work entitled Scientific Meliorism and the Evolution of Happiness . The world of thought has acquired new knowledge since then; and many social changes have occurred. The present volume is not a replica of that work, although, as before, my aim has been to gather together the currents of meliorism pursuing diverse courses throughout society and to throw upon these the light of fresh knowledge gained by investigators of economic and social science; and, above all, the light emanating from philosophic thinkers who recognize that the path of improved outward conditions, and the path of inward progress for man, lie parallel to each other. It is my belief that in this dawning epoch of conscious evolution man may, if he so chooses, push forward the actual life of to-day and merge it into the ideal life of to-morrow. There has recently occurred a widespread commemoration of the birth of that pure-souled American, who was pre-eminently a teacher of the ideal life. This volume, I hope, will be read in America, and, to the memory of Emerson I tender homage, while adopting his phrase, “ Hitch Your Wagon to a Star ,” as the motto of my book. The toil of man’s daily life alas! is indeed as the straining and jolting of a lumbering wagon,—it grovels, it wallows, it drags wearily, and the soul of the wagoner soars not. But there are few thinkers who confront the great social question of the hour as not the rescue of the submerged tenth merely, not the elevation of the masses only, but the uplifting of all Humanity to higher levels in the scale of being. When the great process of social reform is animated and ruled by that lofty aspiration, the lumbering wagon of toil will become a triumphal chariot of moral and spiritual progress. JANE HUME CLAPPERTON. PAGE Initial Chapter— Happiness 1 Part I— Economics in Modern Life I The Industrial Revolution 23 II Organized Industry 51 Part II— The Physiological Aspects of the Subject I The Law of Population 79 II The Problem of Sex 97 III Eugenics or Stirpiculture 114 IV Marriage 131 V Parentage 149 Part III— Abnormal Humanity The Elimination of Crime 163 Part IV— Evolution of the Emotions I The Sentiments of Individual Rights and Social Justice 185 II Rapacity, Pride, Love of Property 202 III Personal Jealousy, National Patriotism 218 Part V— Education, or Direct Training of Childhood to the Civilized Habit of Mind 237 Part VI— Conditions in Aid of Happy Life in a Developing Civilization I The Needs of Adolescence 257 II Domestic Reform 268 Part VII— Religion and Religious Life Primal Elements in Humanity’s Evolution 287 Summary 319 Synopsis 325 — J. C. Chatterji. The age in which we live is one of great activity and general movement. We are passing out of the mindless, genetic, into the rational, conscious epochs of evolution; and while, at every stage of human history, right conduct depends objectively on relatively true thinking, and subjectively, on good impulses, a transitional period such as the present demands special efforts to attain to an adequate and clear conception of the problems of life. If no correct philosophy of life comes to birth in the thinking centres of our social organism, general conduct will continue harmful to many and inimical to progress. How may the truth of a philosophy be tested? No better answer, I think, can be given than that of Buddha, of whom it is chronicled that he said in reference to a projected philosophy—“After observation and analysis if it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” Our theory of life must appeal to the developed reason of civilized man and carry a conviction of its truth. Moreover, it must be all-embracing. Sectional aims and aspirations will never suffice. The aim must be universal, i.e., directed to the well-being of all mankind. In view of the question: “What is the primary object of human life?” two significant facts are apparent. First, the perpetual aim, conscious or instinctive, of man, as of all physical beings, is to compass the satisfaction of his desires, viz., contentment. Second, however diverse and conflicting may seem the op