Ethics and Theology, and is the discussion which has for some years been familiar to readers of his Ethics. Mr. Bosanquet treats of The Communication of Moral Ideas as a Function of an Ethical Society. Mr. Leslie Stephens's paper is on The Aims of Ethical Societies. The Ethical Movement Defined is Dr. Coit's theme. The book concludes with Professor Muirhead's essay, The Position of an Ethical Society. As many of these papers deal with the attitude of ethical societies towards the Christian church, viewed as an organ of practical moral instruction, or as the champion of certain theological tenets claimed to be basal for morality, the title Ethics and Religion is not inappropriately given to the collection. Where the contributors represent such a diversity of ethical and religious belief no one will look for complete unity in their utterances. There are, however, several points upon which most of them agree, and which form a kind of platform for union in moral endeavor. While it would be an easy task to select points of interest in the separate essays, the best service may perhaps be rendered by attempting to indicate some of the more generally accepted positions which belong to the work as a whole.
Almost all the writers frankly recognize the important part played by the church as the teacher of positive morality. Sir John Seeley expresses this by saying that the Christian church "has been for nearly two thousand years the great Ethical Society of the world" (p. 19). Such movements as the ethical societies, he affirms, "only grow out of a soil which has been formed by centuries of Christian tillage" (p. 19). And yet he admits the failure of the church to deal effectively with the moral problems of the day, and finds "the old recognized organs of spiritual life paralyzed at the very moment when spiritual life itself is most active" (p. 6). And again, … "the Christianity of the day may almost be said to teach religion perhaps, but not ethics" (p. 20). A few more marked exceptions to a tone of friendly recognition of the moral influence of the churches may be noted. Mr. Adler says: "The wealth and depth of spiritual insight would, no doubt, to-day be greater in the world if spiritual truths had been kept in the fluent state, and had never been made the cornerstones of organized churches" (p. 36). Professor Gizycki expresses a similar thought when he says: "The churches in the past have doubted the free moral strength of mankind. They do still; and in that way they are an obstacle to the moral life" (p. 200). Mr. Leslie Stephen quite naturally also runs afoul of elements in popular Christianity, which he can only regard, in contrast with more pronounced errors, as 'relatively' elevating; "elevating as slavery
