A Handbook of Ethical Theory

ounce certain rights he might exercise if wholly independent, and to receive in exchange legal rights which guarantee to the individual

between social classes, between nations; but they have all been contracts between men already in a social state of some sort, capable of choice and merely desirous of modifying in some particular some aspect of that social state. The notion of an original cont

sort. The reception which is accorded to him is of the utmost moment to him. He may be rejected utterly by the social forces presiding over his birth. In which case he does not start life independently, but is snuffed out as is a candle-f

of human beings, a family standing in more or less loose relations to a limited number of other families; he may belong to a clan in which family relationship still serves a

cannot be the same under differing conditions. Social life implies cooperation, but the limits of possible cooperation are very differently estimated by man at different stages of his development. To a few human beings each man is bound closely at every stage of his evolution. The family bo

conditions. The simple, communistic savage, limited in his outlook, thinks in terms of small numbers. A handful of individuals enjoy membership in his group; he recognizes certain re

may seem natural and inevitable. To Plato there remained the strongly marked distinctions between the Athenian, the citizen of another Hellenic community, and the barbarian. War, when waged against the last, might justifiably be merciless; not so, wh

the number of households in the State shall be limited to five thousand and forty. Aristotle, less arbitrarily exact, allows a variation within rather broad limits, holding that a political community should not comprise a number of citizens smaller than ten, nor one greater than one hundred thousand. [FOOTNOTE: PLATO, Laws, v. ARISTOTLE, Ethics,

o harvest, capable of foresight in storing and distributing the fruits of its labors. It may combine some of the above activities; and may, in addition, have arrived at the stage at which the arts and crafts have attained to a considerable development. In its life commerce may have come to play an important role, bringing it into peaceful relations with other communities and broadening the circle of its interests. That human societies at such different stages of their development should dif

ed social classes come into existence, standing in more or less sharply defined relations to ot

place may differ little from other places, save as such are determined by age or sex. But in more highly differentiated societi

od and clothing provided for them in moderation, and who have entrusted the practice of the arts to others, and whose

selves to the perfecting of their own minds and bodies and to preparation for the serious work of supervising and controlling the state. Their membership in the class defined their duties and prescribe

and a recognition of private property in any developed sense, has given place in such a state to sharp contrasts in the status of man and man. Such contrasts obtain in all mo

of enormous importance in determining what he shall become and what sort of a life he shall lead. That his social setting is equally significant is obvious. What he shall know, what habits he shall form, w

eals to us that the new departure is but a step taken from a vantage-ground which has not been won by independent effort. The information in the light of which he chooses, the situation in the face of which he acts, the emotional nature which impels him to effort, the habits of thought and action which have become part of his being-these a

development as a member of society, and in the course of a historical evolution. It was pointed out many centuries ago that a hand cut off from the human body cannot proper

ing that man becomes a moral agent. To understand him we

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