The plain fact is that it was of no use, and is of no use
to-day. There is, indeed, reason to think that we should make more
progress if we entirely discarded figures of speech like "the
brotherhood of men." The fact that we are all children of God, or
children of Eve, or children of some Tertiary anthropoid, does not very
obviously impose on us the duty not to take up arms in an international
quarrel.
The ultimate basis of morality is, as Schopenhauer said, sympathy,
though in an advanced social order this sentiment approves itself to
the intellect, and its requirements may be precisely formulated by
reason. One is not sure whether there will not be more morality in the
world when the word "morality," with all its mystic entanglements, is
discarded, and we speak plainly of social law. Violence, the infliction
of pain and injustice, is one of the most obvious infractions of social
law, quite apart from any religious commandments. Its social evil is so
obvious that the community has, at an early date in its development,
elaborated a special machinery for restraining it, and has imposed
penalties in this world, whatever it thinks about the next. There may be
questions raised, and one can understand people who are confined to a
religious environment feeling a genuine concern, about other sections of
moral law; but it would be obviously absurd to think that a humanitarian
ethic would fail here.
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