A Study of Depression and Relationships

A primary concern for Psychology research is depression. Depression affects a great deal of our population and many aspects of an individual's mental health and well-being. In my research of books, articles, and Internet pages on depression, I chose to base my paper mainly on a 1994 article of a study of depression, entitled Depression, Working Models of Others, and Relationship Functioning, by Katherine B. Carnelley, Paula R. Pietromonaco, and Kenneth Jaffe.
This study focuses on the idea that the type of care received in childhood, positive or negative, has a great effect on relationship functioning later in adulthood. But there are two links between child-rearing and relationship functioning: attachment style and depression. Both derive from the type of care received in childhood and affect relationship functioning, and both exert a reciprocal influence on each other in adulthood. The researchers of this study wanted to examine all the correlation's between type of care, attachment style, depression, and relationship functioning. They proposed a three part hypothesis: 1. A less positive childhood would result in an insecure attachment style and depression, 2. Depressives would exhibit a preoccupied or fearful style of attachment, and 3. attachment style would affect relationship functioning more than depression.
The research was conducted in two independent studies. The first study sampled 204 college women. Women were studied based on the very plausible assumptions that women are more susceptible to depression than men and relationships carry more significance with women than men. The women were screened using the Beck Depression Inventory, a popular method of testing consisting of 21 multiple choice questions to be administered by a clinician. The questions range in scope from feelings of sadness to loss of libido. From these results, a sample of 163 was taken: 73 whose scores indicated mild depression. From this point the researchers administered various inventories to assess the type of childhood care given, romantic attachment styles, and relationship functioning.
Depression appears to be the independent variable, because the sample was selected based on desired levels of depression. Once the distinction in levels of depression had been made, childhood care, attachment style, and relationship functioning were assessed in relation to depression.
The actual distinction between independent and dependent variables is confusing. There are almost ten variables in this experiment: mild depression, no depression, dating or not dating (101 out of 163 were involved in stable dating relationships that averaged 19.99 months), positive or negative child-rearing, attachment style (fearful, preoccupied, or secure), and relationship functioning (overall satisfaction, quality of interactions with partner, and conflict resolution style). The confusion arises in that the study is assessing the relationships of so many variables.
The second study repeated the first except the sample consisted of recovering clinically depressed married women and non depressed married women.
The first hypothesis 1a was confirmed as having a strong correlation between women with negative childhood experiences with their mother and a preoccupied and avoidant attachment style. Hypothesis 1b was confirmed by a strong correlation between childhood experiences and depression.
A very strong correlation existed between depression and fearful and preoccupied attachment styles, consistent with the second hypothesis.
The researchers found that attachment style had more of an impact than depression, "attachment style was the most consistent predictor of relationship functioning and generally predicted functioning better than depression," consistent with the third hypothesis.
The second study consisting of clinically depressed married women, and non depressed women found a correlation between greater fearful avoidance and preoccupation in recovering clinically depressed married women.
This study raised several interesting questions: To what can the various types of relationship functioning and the multifarious correlation's between the variables involved be ascribed? Are the factors controlling depression external or internal? How do people develop their "working models" of relationships? Do these models derive from childhood, or are they slowly assimilated over the course of one's life?
I would now like to go on to the treatment and results of depression and the affects on the ones they love. When one is depressive, some studies show that one may become more productive at work, they need less, sleep, and also concentrate harder on their work according to Syndrome of The Elite: Bipolar Disorder II, by Carl Sherman. People affected sometimes can have quick, innovative intelligence. They can be charismatic, have more energy, but they can also have extreme mood swings to upset a relationship. When one is treated with a medication such as lithium to stabilize their moods, one may actually benefit from having such a disease. These people will be hard working, need less sleep, and can get ahead in their jobs. Some of the top executives, creative people, and entrepreneurs benefit from these conditions. However, in the home these mood swings may lead to unresolved fights, and anger within one's family. Depression can lead to excessive behavior, such as gambling, and exorbitant lifestyles. This is compounded by the problem that one suffering also likes to be isolated, and prefers not to talk about compounding problems they may be facing. This can build up a fire inside one's self. We can only say for sure that with the bi-polar stages of manic depression, that many relationships can only follow the highs and lows of the depressive's states.
To fight this disease, many people turn to the many available anti-depressant drugs on the market now. These drugs alter the bio-chemicals in the brain itself. It works wonders for most people. In fact, 85% of all manic depressives have great results right away when treated according to an the article entitled, 1 in 5 adults suffer mental illness Experts say great strides made in
treating Depression, by Natalie Neiman. Also according to this study, almost 15 to 20 percent of manic depressives commit suicide, which makes treating this disease a must. One way of tracing this is through hereditary. Almost 40-50 percent of the siblings of manic depressive's children also have a depression disorder. It is sometimes however hard to decipher between a normal teenager's mood swings, or a depression. People need to realize not to discriminate, and know that it is a treatable chemistry imbalance. If one's teenager is acting in a depressive state have them talk to a psychologist, and assure them nothing is wrong with them, and that it can only help.
I chose to do my research on this given that I am manic depressive. I had recently broken up in a relationship, and this research helped to satisfy some curiosities. With this research I realize how much I have been helped, and it helped to explain some of my personality traits. Someone who has manic depression should definitely go in for help, and should realize the risk of not. The research shows that the interaction between relationship functioning, depression, and attachment style are attributable to early childhood. In other words, an individual's experiences in his or her formative years can have lasting psychological effects, up to the most basic social functions in adulthood.

Culture Nature & Freedom Treating Juvinile offenders

Culture, Nature & Freedom: Treating Juvenile Offenders.
In Kansas, Juvenile offenders are sent to "Youth Centers". These
are merely Child prisons, lockdown facilities for kids. This style of
treatment goes against every idea of growth put forward in this class. In
this paper I will try to justify the use of residential treatment schemes
through the ideas found in several of this semesters authors; including
T.Huxtley, Rousseau, DuBois, Freud, A.Huxtley, and Mill. The Ideals set
forth by these intellectuals should be the basis for all treatment, to better
the individuals and society.
First, We can look to DuBois. He believes that people can change
their own consciousness. He shows this through his Immersion narrative.
This can't work in a youth center. The only cultural ideal here is the
Master/slave dialectic between staff and youth. The sides work apart. The
two can't join because one does not experience the other. There is no way
to be "above the veil" of their status. In a residential treatment modality,
Relationship building is key to success. The youth need to feel the veil
has been lifted. It allows them to explore safely and see the world in a
greater view. The view as other is removed and a true balance displaces
the master / slave one.
Next, we can look at Mills Ideas on culture. He would like to elevate
the morals of the human mind. To do this, we must continually test the
standard. New ideas must be able to circulate freely. We must weigh how
all actions effect others. This can not be done in these Youth centers as
well. They have very specific codes and any questioning is reprimanded.
Cultural influx is at a standstill and Censor ship is at it's highest possible
level. A residential treatment modality gives all ideas a free shot. Self
Government, A system used by the youth assures a safe environment to
share all feedback and new ideas openly, to non judgmental ears. it looks
at how one's action are related to others and provides a 'safe place' for all
expression. Allowing ideas to stay fresh and moral stability and growth to
flourish.
This leads us directly to the dehumanization described by T.H.
Huxtley. First, we have the effects of Social-Darwinism. We are using our
own projections of nature for a model. These children are being culturally
pushed aside for progress, stuck in mini prisons. Where, rather than fix
problems, we push them into suffering so that we may achieve gains.
Then there is the idea of the gospel of wealth. Why help these kids? My
money is a product of an evolutionary force, so is there placement.
Helping would only interrupt their punishment. These Youth Centers also
rob them of their ability to meet the goals of our society's Protestant
work ethic. They have no contribution! These three things let us
dehumanize these children and put their responsibility off on others.
Residential treatment, on the other hand, removes the gospel of wealth
mentality; earn as much as you want, monetary forces are not
evolutionary. Intervention is key to Residential Treatment, no
punishment of lower classes. This system makes everyone equal. This
flows into the work ethic removal as well, everyone contributes and the
group benefits. No individual benefit is given out. If one is good, then all
are good. Finally, it erases the mask of Social-Darwinism. The youth work
to meet goals for each other. No one wants to be above the rest. A strong
whole help everyone individually as well. A week whole causes resentment
and jealousy.
A look at Wiesel gives us insight to the effect of the political
institution on these Centers. Are these kids a product of our culture? If so
how do we keep this from occurring? The answer is not to lock them up.
What family bonds were available? Instead of locking the kids up, we need
to find our mistake! Rationality has an opportunity to fail here.
Residential treatment lets everyone be separate and define their own
meanings of life, between being and life itself. This helps each youth find
meaning in life virtue of their own experiences.
From here we can move to A. Huxtley. His views show what would
happen if culture completely displaced nature in society. This translates
to the society of a youth Center. Youth Centers are completely
denaturalized, almost to the point of being sterile. The futures of these
youth should not be predestined, and mapped out as in a youth center.
Here progress is mapped. In a residential style treatment setup the social
control is through self government and peer interactions, not a cultural
controlling body. Also the myth of progress is dismantles. Residential
treatment looks for change not progress. These ongoing changes allow for
humanness. There is an availability of true human values, not just the
pop culture presented in the prison center.
Finally, we can look at Freud. His ideas link the behaviors exhibited
to inner problems with family and society. He brings into question the
moral and cultural values instilled by other institutions such as church
and school. He trys to place things in several different categories. First,
The Eros and Thantos Dialectic. Agressivity hang in the balance here. Our
family structure should let us put the primary agressivity we have in
check. Regardless, Freud looks to the person and the cultural venue for
answers. A youth center is only a storage facility. There is no therapeutic
gain achieved in these Child Prisons. They merely use reactive measures
to stop behaviors, instead of looking for antecedents proactively. Once
again residential treatment has an edge. Through the self government,
relationship building process, and cultural challenges, the youth in these
settings work on the exterior antecedents that may be effecting their
behaviors . This ,in addition to clearing the distorted cultural view, also
provides a venue for problem solving and rational discussions of ideas. It
provides a vehicle for the youth to begin the self searching required to
look into some of these ideas and find a better reality. Growth and gain
for all is the key. For Freud, this is achieved by keeping drives in check
between the pleasure principle, our moral super ego, and the
authoritative "I" in the ego. Again, this is only done in residential
settings. Youth Centers only house children, hampering all these abilities
spoken about above.
I believe that the question of how to rehabilitate Juvenile Offenders is
simple. We must Fix kids instead of locking them up. The Ideas presented
here are the most sound way to do that. These theories allow for mental
growth, equality, change and freedom from censorship to new ideas. This
is exactly what these youth need. Their culture has limited them and
placed a veil over them in society. Residential treatment is the only way
to remedy this. The safety of idea exchange and the freedom of growth
allow for each youth to develop the personality needed to question the
right things and put the cultural puzzle together. Youth centers only let
them sit, and ponder the only culture they know. This makes the group
Fester and fall further down the rungs of the societal ladder. This setup
only hardens the veil of separation between the troubled youth and
society. As you can see residential treatment is the only alternative to
give these youth a chance to gain the skills needed for life today.

Critical Analysis of Gilgamesh

There are many differences and critical comparisons that can be drawn between the epics of Beowulf and Gilgamesh. Both are historical poems which shape their respected culture and both have major social, cultural, and political impacts on the development of western civilization literature and writing. Before any analysis is made, it is vital that some kind of a foundation be established so that a further, in-depth exploration of the complex nature of both narratives can be accomplished.
The epic of Gilgamesh is an important Middle Eastern literary work, written in cuneiform on 12 clay tablets about 2000 BC. This heroic poem is named for its hero, Gilgamesh, a tyrannical Babylonian king who ruled the city of Uruk, known in the Bible as Erech (now Warka, Iraq). According to the myth, the gods respond to the prayers of the oppressed citizenry of Uruk and send a wild, brutish man, Enkidu, to challenge Gilgamesh to a wrestling match. When the contest ends with neither as a clear victor, Gilgamesh and Enkidu become close friends. They journey together and share many adventures. Accounts of their heroism and bravery in slaying dangerous beasts spread to many lands.
When the two travelers return to Uruk, Ishtar (guardian deity of the city) proclaims her love for the heroic Gilgamesh. When he rejects her, she sends the Bull of Heaven to destroy the city. Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the bull, and, as punishment for his participation, the gods doom Enkidu to die. After Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh seeks out the wise man Utnapishtim to learn the secret of immortality. The sage recounts to Gilgamesh a story of a great flood (the details of which are so remarkably similar to later biblical accounts of the flood that scholars have taken great interest in this story). After much hesitation, Utnapishtim reveals to Gilgamesh that a plant bestowing eternal youth is in the sea. Gilgamesh dives into the water and finds the plant but later loses it to a serpent and, disconsolate, returns to Uruk to end his days.
This saga was widely studied and translated in ancient times. Biblical writers appear to have modeled their account of the friendship of David and Jonathan on the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Numerous Greek writers also incorporated elements found in the Gilgamesh epic into their dragon-slaying epics and into stories concerning the close bond between Achilles and Patroclus.
Gilgamesh is definitely the best known of all ancient Mesopotamian heroes. Numerous tales in the Akkadian language have been told about Gilgamesh, and the whole collection has been described as an odyssey-the odyssey of a king who did not want to die. This is one of the major differences between the heroic characters. Beowulf, in order to achieve immortality through the tales of his bards, must perish in battle to accomplish this task. A similarity between both characters is their desire to obtain immortality. They both have different techniques in trying to reach their ultimate destination, although both share the unique qualities of being flawless, strong, and heroic to the end. The fullest extant text of the Gilgamesh epic is on twelve incomplete Akkadian-language tablets found at Nineveh in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (reigned 668-627 BC). The gaps that occur in the tablets have been partly filled by various fragments found elsewhere in Mesopotamia and Anatolia. In addition, five short poems in the Sumerian language are known from tablets that were written during the first half of the 2nd millennium BC; the poems have been entitled "Gilgamesh and Huwawa," "Gilgamesh and the Bull of Heaven," "Gilgamesh and Agga of Kish," "Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Nether World," and "The Death of Gilgamesh."
The Gilgamesh of the poems and of the epic tablets was probably the Gilgamesh who ruled at Uruk in southern Mesopotamia sometime during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC and who was thus a contemporary of Agga, ruler of Kish; Gilgamesh of Uruk was also mentioned in the Sumerian list of kings as reigning after the flood. Much like Beowulf, there is, however, no historical evidence for the exploits narrated in poems and the epic.
The Ninevite version of the epic begins with a prologue in praise of Gilgamesh, part divine and part human, the great builder and warrior, knower of all things on land and sea. In order to curb Gilgamesh's seemingly harsh rule, the god Anu caused the creation of a Enkidu, a wild man who at first lived among animals. Soon, however, Enkidu was initiated into the ways of city life and traveled to Uruk, where Gilgamesh awaited him. Tablet II describes a trial of strength between the two men in which Gilgamesh was the victor; thereafter, Enkidu was the friend and companion (in Sumerian texts, the servant) of Gilgamesh. In Tablets III-V the two men set out together against Huwawa (Humbaba), the divinely appointed guardian of a remote cedar forest, but the rest of the engagement is not recorded in the surviving fragments.
In Tablet VI Gilgamesh, who had returned to Uruk, rejected the marriage proposal of Ishtar, the goddess of love, and then, with Enkidu's aid, killed the divine bull that she had sent to destroy him. Tablet VII begins with Enkidu's account of a dream in which the gods Anu, Ea, and Shamash decided that he must die for slaying the bull. Enkidu then fell ill and dreamed of the "house of dust" that awaited him. Gilgamesh's lament for his friend and the state funeral of Enkidu are narrated in Tablet VIII. Afterward, Gilgamesh made a dangerous journey (Tablets IX and X) in search of Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Babylonian flood, in order to learn from him how to escape death. He finally reached Utnapishtim, who told him the story of the flood and showed him where to find a plant that would renew youth (Tablet XI). But after Gilgamesh obtained the plant, it was seized by a serpent, and Gilgamesh unhappily returned to Uruk. An appendage to the epic, Tablet XII, related the loss of objects called (perhaps "drum" and "drumstick") given to Gilgamesh by Ishtar. The epic ends with the return of the spirit of Enkidu, who promised to recover the objects and then gave a grim report on the underworld.
Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem, the most important work of Old English literature. The earliest surviving manuscript is in the British Library; it is written in the West Saxon dialect and is believed to date from the late 10th century. On the basis of this text, Beowulf is generally considered to be the work of an anonymous 8th-century Anglian poet who fused Scandinavian history and pagan mythology with Christian elements. The poem consists of 3182 lines, each line with four accents marked by alliteration and divided into two parts by a caesura. The structure of the typical Beowulf line comes through in modern translation, for example:

Then came from the moor under misted cliffs
Grendel marching God's anger he bore ...
Much like Gilgamesh, the story is told in vigorous, picturesque language, with heavy use of metaphor; a famous example is the term "whale-road" for sea. The poem tells of a hero, a Scandinavian prince named Beowulf, who rids the Danes of the monster Grendel, half man and half fiend, and Grendel's mother, who comes that evening to avenge Grendel's death. Fifty years later Beowulf, now king of his native land, fights a dragon who has devastated his people. Both Beowulf and the dragon are mortally wounded in the fight. The poem ends with Beowulf's funeral as his mourners chant his epitaph.
Both Beowulf and Gilgamesh are loved and are shown loyalty from their people. Although both Beowulf and Gilgamesh represent two different types of heroes, both achieve ultimate good through their actions. The need for love and loyalty is also manifested throughout both poems. Death merely becomes an incident in the lives of Beowulf and Gilgamesh. They both teach its audience and invaluable lesson: What matters is not how long, but rather how well we live.






Bibliography

Fry, Donald K. The Beowulf Poet: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1968. A collection of essays on the poem current up to the mid 1960s.

Fulk, R.D., ed. Interpretations of Beowulf: A Critical Anthology. Indiana University Press.Indianapolis: 1991. Fulk's anthology is a diverse collection of critical approaches to Beowulf. Essays range from the poem's structure and design to Christian and intellectual perspectives to theory on the narrative. The collection includes J.R.R. Tolkien's famous "The Monsters and the Critics," in which he critiques the history of Beowulf criticism to his own day.

Greenfield, Stanley B. and Daniel G. Calder. A new critical history of old English literature. New York : New York University Press, 1986.
Excellent overview of the history of Old English literature with a good chapter on Beowulf and heroic poetry. A good place to start for an orientation to Beowulf in literary historical context.

Nicholson, Lewis E., ed. An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism. South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963.
A standard collection of scholarly essays on Beowulf up to the early 1960s.

Chase, Colin, ed. The Dating of Beowulf. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
This book is a compilation of studies done from 1979 to 1981 to determine the date when
Beowulf was composed. The studies used many different methods to determine its origins, from grammar and sentence construction to comparing the text to historical knowledge. The collected essays present many opinions, but they do not make any conclusions.

The Norton Anthology of World Literature, ed. Gilgamesh: Norton and Company, 1985. Contains world literature from the various authors and ages.

Creativity and Human Evolution

Creativity is the sole heart of modernization, technology and the arts. Without creativity, humanity would still thrive in caves. There is no argument against creativity being an important aspect of our society, there is, however, a question whether creativity is spawned by mental disorder. Albert Einstein came up with ideas that seemed impossible or eccentric. Froyd's psychology theorems were laughed at, but now widely used and accepted. Both men were highly successful with their work. Einstein was considered a slow person and mentally incapable by his teachers. Froyd was an excellent student and was considered above average in all his school work. Both men were labeled as geniuses, and both men suffered from some kind of depression .
Dr. Arnold M. Ludwig informs us that ". . . creativity must go beyond the bounds of what already is known or deductible by reason . . . "(American Journal of Psychotherapy). It is creativity that is the soul of the inventor, painter or poet. Creativity is not equal among most people and in fact is hindered by " . . . self censorship, that inner voice of judgment that confines our creative spirit within the boundaries of what we deem acceptable."(Psych Today).
Dr. Torrence, in his studies, concluded that intelligence does not have any effect on creativity and it is the thinking style that actually stimulates creativity (Journal of Personality). His tests focused on the hemispheres of the brain in which he stated that " . . . left - hemisphere style is related to less creativity than right - hemisphere and interhemisphere styles." (Journal of Personality). Results of Torrance's study prompted others to reject his conclusion by maintaining that ". . . intellectual superiority is the primary determining factor in creative performance." (Kirk & Gallager 1983).
Intelligence might not be a major factor in innovations but according to William F. Allmen of U.S. News and World Report, " . . . history's most creative minds clearly operate on a different plane." It is this millennium long mind set that prompted psychologist Howard Gardner to examine, or build, a profile of a genius. In his book, Creating Minds, Gardner relates five similarities that he found while examining Sigmund Froyd, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, T.S. Elliot, Martha Graham and Mahatma Gandhi. According to Gardner, a creative mind grows up in social seclusion. The upbringing of such an individual is usually middle class, where focus of life is based on hard work and high moral values. Such an individual is also known to push away friends and relatives. His work absorbs him and total focus of attention is dedicated to the ongoing project. The 'genius' is known to follow a '10 year rule', where this person is known to have". . . two bursts of creativity."(U.S. News and World Report). First one is very extreme, and the second is usually more socially accepted. According to Gardner a 'genius' is also known to have childlike perceptions on things. Taking a totally different route to solving a problem was one of the major ways Albert Einstein came up with his time and space theories.
In the 4th century B.C. Aristotle was quoted as saying, "Why is it that all men who are outstanding in philosophy, poetry or the arts are melancholic?"(New York Times, c1). Ever since then a famous anonymous quote was formed, "There is a thin line between genius and madness." (New York Times). It is not uncommon for a creative person to suffer from different types of depressions. According to a study performed by Dr. Arnold M. Ludwig at the University of Kentucky Medical Center that ". . . looked at the incidence of psychiatric illness among 1004 eminent men and women . . . Ludwig discovered that psychiatric disturbances were far more common among the artists than among the others." (New York Times. C8). Dr. Ludwig does not conclude that all creative people suffer from mental illness, however he does suggest that a certain correlation does exist and it cannot be ignored.
Another study performed by University of Stanford suggested an opposite conclusion to Dr. Ludwigs. The study allegedly examined over a thousand 'geniuses' and ". . . suggest[ed] a connection between creativity and mental health rather than mental illness"(American Journal of Psychotherapy). The same study insists that a general problem exists with the difficulty in determining the nature of creativity. Dr. Ludwing implied that creative individuals are usually more troubled than their 'noncreative' counterparts but have more resources to deal with their problems(American Journal of Psychotherapy).
Reading previous studies, one could conclude two separate theories. One is that depression stimulates creativity, and the other that creativity stimulates depression. According to some current tests performed at the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Post and Dr. Terence Ketter used a PET, brain scanning device, to examine brain activity during mental depressions. As the volunteers were injected with a drug that stimulated mania, brain's limbic activity increased. The limbic activity is part of the brain that is responsible for the creative side of a person. When another drug was injected that stimulated anxiety and euphoria, the limbic activity ceased. (New York Times)
Depression is known to cause sleeping disorders. There are times where an individual is overcome by sleep. It is during these times where the mind is somehow set free to 'roam' and new ideas form. Thomas Edison would use this hypnagogic state to think through his problems and come up with solutions. He would place two metal ball in his hands, lay back in his chair and fall asleep. As soon as he drifted into the first phase of sleep, his hand muscles gave way and the balls dropped on metal plates below. The noise would wake Thomas Edison, and instantly he would jot down the ideas that came to him(Psychology Today). Sleep is not the only way ideas come to us. Whenever we are envolved in a relaxing activity such as a walk or while taking a shower, our minds envoce our limbic part of the brain.
Human mind is still a mystery to us all. It is hard to conclude on what spawns creativity. Depression and intelligence seem very far apart, yet scientists have found that both could be linked together.

Recapitulation and Conclusion - Hot Articles

I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have thoroughly convinced me that species have been modified, during a long course of descent. This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously. It appears that I formerly underrated the frequency and value of these latter forms of variation, as leading to permanent modifications of structure independently of natural selection. But as my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position -- namely, at the close of the Introduction -- the following words: "I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification." This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.

It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers. The undulatory theory of light has thus been arrived at; and the belief in the revolution of the earth on its own axis was until lately supported by hardly any direct evidence. It is no valid objection that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Who can explain what is the essence of the attraction of gravity? No one now objects to following out the results consequent on this unknown element of attraction; notwithstanding that Leibnitz formerly accused Newton of introducing "occult qualities and miracles into philosophy."

I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satisfactory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws."

Why, it may be asked, until recently did nearly all the most eminent living naturalists and geologists disbelieve in the mutability of species? It cannot be asserted that organic beings in a state of nature are subject to no variation; it cannot be proved that the amount of variation in the course of long ages is a limited quality; no clear distinction has been, or can be, drawn between species and well-marked varieties. It cannot be maintained that species when intercrossed are invariably sterile, and varieties invariably fertile; or that sterility is a special endowment and sign of creation. The belief that species were immutable productions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.

But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth to clear and distinct species, is that we are always slow in admitting great changes of which we do not see the steps. The difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys excavated, by the agencies which we see still at work. The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of even a million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as the "plan of creation" or "unity of design," &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt the immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with confidence to the future, -- to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his conviction; for thus only can the load of prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed be removed.

Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real species; but that other species are real, that is, have been independently created. This seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately they themselves thought were special creations, and which are still thus looked at by the majority of naturalists, and which consequently have all the external characteristic features of true species, -- they admit that these have been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to other and slightly different forms. Nevertheless they do not pretend that they can define, or even conjecture, which are the created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion. These authors seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth’s history certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues? Do they believe that at each supposed act of creation one individual or many were produced? Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown? and in the case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother’s womb? Undoubtedly some of these same questions cannot be answered by those who believe in the appearance or creation of only a few forms of life, or of some one form alone. It has been maintained by several authors that it is as easy to believe in the creation of a million beings as of one; but Maupertuis’ philosophical axiom "of least action" leads the mind more willingly to admit the smaller number; and certainly we ought not to believe that innumerable beings within each great class have been created with plain, but deceptive, marks of descent from a single parent.

As a record of a former state of things, I have retained in the foregoing paragraphs, and elsewhere, several sentences which imply that naturalists believe in the separate creation of each species; and I have been much censured for having thus expressed myself. But undoubtedly this was the general belief when the first edition of the present work appeared. I formerly spoke to very many naturalists on the subject of evolution, and never once met with any sympathetic agreement. It is probable that some did then believe in evolution, but they were either silent, or expressed themselves so ambiguously that it was not easy to understand their meaning. Now things are wholly changed, and almost every naturalist admits the great principle of evolution. There are, however, some who still think that species have suddenly given birth, through quite unexplained means, to new and totally different forms: but, as I have attempted to show, weighty evidence can be opposed to the admission of great and abrupt modifications. Under a scientific point of view, and as leading to further investigation, but little advantage is gained by believing that new forms are suddenly developed in an inexplicable manner from old and widely different forms, over the old belief in the creation of species from the dust of the earth.

It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more distinct the forms are which we consider, by so much the arguments in favour of community of descent become fewer in number and less in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend very far. All the members of whole classes are connected together by a chain of affinities, and all can be classed on the same principle, in groups subordinate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes tend to fill up very wide intervals between existing orders.

Organs in a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor had the organ in a fully developed condition; and this in some cases implies an enormous amount of modification in the descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on the same pattern, and at a very early age the embryos closely resemble each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification embraces all the members of the same great class or kingdom. I believe that animals are descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me one step farther, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their cellular structure, their laws of growth, and their liability to injurious influences. We see this even in so trifling a fact as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gallfly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. With all organic beings excepting perhaps some of the very lowest, sexual production seems to be essentially similar. With all, as far as is at present known the germinal vesicle is the same; so that all organisms start from a common origin. If we look even to the two main divisions -- namely, to the animal and vegetable kingdoms -- certain low forms are so far intermediate in character that naturalists have disputed to which kingdom they should be referred. As Professor Asa Gray has remarked, "The spores and other reproductive bodies of many of the lower algae may claim to have first a characteristically animal, and then an unequivocally vegetable existence." Therefore, on the principle of natural selection with divergence of character, it does not seem incredible that, from such low and intermediate form, both animals and plants may have been developed; and, if we admit this, we must likewise admit that all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some one primordial form. But this inference is chiefly grounded on analogy and it is immaterial whether or not it be accepted. No doubt it is possible, as Mr. G. H. Lewes has urged, that at the first commencement of life many different forms were evolved; but if so we may conclude that only a very few have left modified descendants. For, as I have recently remarked in regard to the members of each great kingdom, such as the Vertebrata, Articulata, &c., we have distinct evidence in their embryological homologous and rudimentary structures that within each kingdom all the members are descended from a single progenitor.

When the views advanced by me in this volume, and by Mr. Wallace, or when analogous views on the origin of species are generally admitted, we can dimly foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in natural history. Systematists will be able to pursue their labours as at present; but they will not be incessantly haunted by the shadowy doubt whether this or that form be a true species. This, I feel sure and I speak after experience, will be no slight relief. The endless disputes whether or not some fifty species of British brambles are good species will cease. Systematists will have only to decide (not that this will be easy) whether any form be sufficiently constant and distinct from other forms, to be capable of definition; and if definable, whether the differences be sufficiently important to deserve a specific name. This latter point will become a far more essential consideration than it is at present; for differences, however slight, between any two forms if not blended by intermediate gradations, are looked at by most naturalists as sufficient to raise both forms to the rank of species.

Hereafter we shall be compelled to acknowledge that the only distinction between species and well-marked varieties is, that the latter are known, or believed, to be connected at the present day by intermediate gradations, whereas species were formerly thus connected. Hence, without rejecting the consideration of the present existence of intermediate gradations between any two forms we shall be led to weigh more carefully and to value higher the actual amount of difference between them. It is quite possible that forms now generally acknowledged to be merely varieties may hereafter be thought worthy of specific names; and in this case scientific and common language will come into accordance. In short, we shall have to treat species in the same manner as those naturalists treat genera, who admit that genera are merely artificial combinations made for convenience. This may not be a cheering prospect; but we shall at least be free from the vain search for the undiscovered and undiscoverable essence of the term species.

The other and more general departments of natural history will rise greatly in interest. The terms used by naturalists, of affinity, relationship, community of type, paternity, morphology, adaptive characters, rudimentary and aborted organs, &c., will cease to be metaphorical, and will have a plain signification. When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a long history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any great mechanical invention is the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting -- I speak from experience -- does the study of natural history become!

A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct action of external conditions, and so forth. The study of domestic productions will rise immensely in value. A new variety raised by man will be a more important and interesting subject for study than one more species added to the infinitude of already recorded species. Our classifications will come to be, as far as they can be so made, genealogies; and will then truly give what may be called the plan of creation. The rules for classifying will no doubt become simpler when we have a definite object in view. We possess no pedigrees or armorial bearings; and we have to discover and trace the many diverging lines of descent in our natural genealogies, by characters of any kind which have long been inherited. Rudimentary organs will speak infallibly with respect to the nature of long-lost structures. Species and groups of species which are called aberrant, and which may fancifully be called living fossils, will aid us in forming a picture of the ancient forms of life. Embryology will often reveal to us the structure, in some degree obscured, of the prototype of each great class.

When we feel assured that all the individuals of the same species, and all the closely allied species of most genera, have within a not very remote period descended from one parent, and have migrated from some one birth-place; and when we better know the many means of migration, then, by the light which geology now throws, and will continue to throw, on former changes of climate and of the level of the land, we shall surely be enabled to trace in an admirable manner the former migrations of the inhabitants of the whole world. Even at present, by comparing the differences between the inhabitants of the sea on the opposite sides of a continent, and the nature of the various inhabitants on that continent, in relation to their apparent means of immigration, some light can be thrown on ancient geography.

The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection of the record. The crust of the earth with its imbedded remains must not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection made at hazard and at rare intervals. The accumulation of each great fossiliferous formation will be recognised as having depended on an unusual concurrence of favourable circumstances, and the blank intervals between the successive stages as having been of vast duration. But we shall be able to gauge with some security the duration of these intervals by a comparison of the preceding and succeeding organic forms. We must be cautious in attempting to correlate as strictly contemporaneous two formations, which do not include many identical species, by the general succession of the forms of life. As species are produced and exterminated by slowly acting and still existing causes, and not by miraculous acts of creation; and as the most important of all causes of organic change is one which is almost independent of altered and perhaps suddenly altered physical conditions, namely, the mutual relation of organism to organism, -- the improvement of one organism entailing the improvement or the extermination of others; it follows, that the amount of organic change in the fossils of consecutive formations probably serves as a fair measure of the relative though not actual lapse of time. A number of species, however, keeping in a body might remain for a long period unchanged, whilst within the same period several of these species by migrating into new countries and coming into competition with foreign associates, might become modified; so that we must not overrate the accuracy of organic change as a measure of time.

In the future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be securely based on the foundation already well laid by Mr. Herbert Spencer, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity; for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped, shows that the greater number of species in each genus, and all the species in many genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it will be the common and widely-spread species, belonging to the larger and dominant groups within each class, which will ultimately prevail and procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Cambrian epoch, we may feel certain that the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some confidence to secure future of great length. And as natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.

It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life and from use and disuse: a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

Sunday Before The War - Best Article

On Sunday, in a remote valley in the West of England, where the people are few and scattered and placid, there was no more sign among them than among the quiet hills of the anxiety that holds the world. They had no news and seemed to want none. The postmaster had been ordered to stay all day in his little post-office, and that was something unusual that interested them, but only because it affected the postmaster.

It rained in the morning, but the afternoon was clear and glorious and shining, with all the distances revealed far into the heart of Wales and to the high ridges of the Welsh mountains. The cottages of that valley are not gathered into villages, but two or three together or lonely among their fruit-trees on the hillside; and the cottagers who are always courteous and friendly, said a word or two as one went by, but just what they would have said on any other day and without any question about the war. Indeed, they seemed to know, or to wish to know, as little about that as the earth itself, which, beautiful there at any time, seemed that afternoon to wear an extreme and pathetic beauty. The country, more than any other in England, has the secret of peace. It is not wild, though it looks into the wildness of Wales; but all its cultivation, its orchards and hopyards and fields of golden wheat, seem to have the beauty of time upon them, as if men there had long lived happily upon the earth with no desire for change nor fear of decay. It is not the sad beauty of a past cut off from the present, but a mellowness that the present inherits from the past; and in the mellowness all the hillside seems a garden to the spacious farmhouses and little cottages; each led up to by its own narrow, flowery lane. There the meadows are all lawns with the lustrous green of spring even in August, and often over-shadowed by old, fruit-trees - cherry, or apple, or pear; and on Sunday after the rain there was an April glory and freshness added to the quiet of the later summer.

Nowhere and never in the world can there have been a deeper peace; and the bells from the little red church down by the river seemed to be the music of it, as the song of birds is the music of spring. There one saw how beautiful the life of man can be, and how men by the innocent labours of many generations can give to the earth a beauty it has never known in its wildness. And all this peace, one knew, was threatened; and the threat came into one's mind as if it were a soundless message from over the great eastward plain; and with it the beauty seemed unsubstantial and strange, as if it were sinking away into the past, as if it were only a memory of childhood.

So it is always when the mind is troubled among happy things, and then one almost wishes they could share one's troubles and become more real with it. It seemed on that Sunday that a golden age had lasted till yesterday, and that the earth had still to learn the news of its ending. And this change had come, not by the will of God, not even by the will of man, but because some few men far away were afraid to be open and generous with each other. There was a power in their hands so great that it frightened them. There was a spring that they knew they must not touch, and, like mischievous and nervous children, they had touched it at last, and now all the world was to suffer for their mischief.

So the next morning one saw a reservist in his uniform saying goodbye to his wife and children at his cottage-gate and then walking up the hill that leads out of the valley with a cheerful smile still on his face. There was the first open sign of trouble, a very little one, and he made the least of it; and, after all, this valley is very far from any possible war, and its harvest and its vintage of perry and cider will surely be gathered in peace.

But what happiness can there be in that peace, or what security in the mind of man, when the madness of war is let loose in so many other valleys? Here there is a beauty inherited from the past, and added to the earth by man's will; but the men here are of the same nature and subject to the same madness as those who are gathering to fight on the frontiers. We are all men with the same power of making and destroying, with the same divine foresight mocked by the same animal blindness. We ourselves may not be in fault to-day, but it is human beings in no way different from us who are doing what we abhor and they abhor even while they do it. There is a fate, coming from the beast in our own past, that the present man in us has not yet mastered, and for the moment that fate seems a malignity in the nature of the universe that mocks us even in the beauty of these lonely hills. But it is not so, for we are not separate and indifferent like the beasts; and if one nation for the moment forgets our common humanity and its future, then another must take over that sacred charge and guard it without hatred or fear until the madness is passed. May that be our task now, so that we may wage war only for the future peace of the world and with the lasting courage that needs no stimulant of hate.

On An Unknown Country - Hot Articles

By Hilaire Belloc

Ten years ago, I think, or perhaps a little less or perhaps a little more, I came in the Euston Road - that thoroughfare of Empire - upon a young man a little younger than myself whom I knew, though I did not know him very well. It was drizzling and the second-hand booksellers (who are rare in this thoroughfare) were beginning to put out the waterproof covers over their wares. This disturbed my acquaintance, because he was engaged upon buying a cheap book that should really satisfy him.

Now this was difficult, for he had no hobby, and the book which should satisfy him must be one that should describe or summon up, or, it is better to say, hint at - or, the theologians would say, reveal, or the Platonists would say recall - the Unknown Country, which he thought was his very home.

I had know his habit of seeking such books for two years, and had half wondered at it and half sympathised. It was an appetite partly satisfied by almost any work that brought to him the vision of a place in the mind which he had always intensely desired, but to which, as he had then long guessed, and as he is now quite certain, no human paths directly lead. He would buy with avidity travels to the moon and to the planets, from the most worthless to the best. He loved Utopias and did not disregard even so prosaic a category as books of real travel, so long as by exaggeration or by a glamour in the style they gave him a full draught of that drug which he desired. Whether this satisfaction the young man sought was a satisfaction in illusion (I have used the word "drug" with hesitation), or whether it was, as he persistently maintained, the satisfaction of a memory, or whether it was, as I am often tempted to think, the satisfaction of a thirst which will ultimately be quenched in every human soul I cannot tell. Whatever it was, he sought it with more than the appetite with which a hungry man seeks food. He sought it with something that was not hunger but passion.

That evening he found a book.

It is well known that men purchase with difficulty second-hand books upon the stalls, and that in some mysterious way the sellers of these books are content to provide a kind of library for the poorer and more eager of the public, and a library admirable in this, that it is accessible upon every shelf and exposes a man to no control, except that he must not steal, and even in this it is nothing but the force of public law that interferes. My friend therefore would in the natural course of things have dipped into the book and left it there; but a better luck persuaded him. Whether it was the beginning of the rain or a sudden loneliness in such terrible weather and in such a terrible town, compelling him to seek a more permanent companionship with another mind, or whether it was my sudden arrival and shame lest his poverty should appear in his refusing to buy the book - whatever it was, he bought that same. And since he bought the book I also have known it and have found in it, as he did, the most complete expression that I know of the Unknown Country, of which he was a citizen - oddly a citizen, as I then thought, wisely as I now conceive.

All that can best be expressed in words should be expressed in verse, but verse is a slow thing to create; nay, it is not really created: it is a secretion of the mind, it is a pearl that gathers round some irritant and slowly expresses the very essence of beauty and of desire that has lain long, potential and unexpressed, in the mind of the man who secretes it. God knows that this Unknown Country has been hit off in verse a hundred times. If I were perfectly sure of my accents I would quote two lines from the Odyssey in which the Unknown Country stands out as clear as does a sudden vision from a mountain ridge when the mist lifts after a long climb and one sees beneath one an unexpected and glorious land; such a vision as greets a man when he comes over the Saldeu into the simple and secluded Republic of the Andorrans. Then, again, the Germans in their idioms have flashed it out, I am assured, for I remember a woman telling me that there was a song by Schiller which exactly gave the revelation of which I speak. In English, thank Heaven, emotion of this kind, emotion necessary to the life of the soul, is very abundantly furnished. As, who does not know the lines:

Blessed with that which is not in the word
Of man or his conception: Blessed land!

Then there is also the whole group of glimpses which Shakespeare amused himself by scattering as might a man who had a great oak chest full of jewels and who now and then, out of kindly fun, poured out a handful and gave them to his guests. I quote from memory, but I think certain of the lines run more or less like this:

Look how the dawn in russet mantle clad,
Stands on the steep of yon high eastern hill.

And again:

Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.

Which moves me to digress. ... How on earth did any living man pull it off as well as that? I remember arguing with a man who very genuinely thought the talent of Shakespeare was exaggerated in public opinion, and discovering at the end of a long wrangle that he was not considering Shakespeare as a poet. But as a poet, then, how on earth did he manage it?

Keats did it continually, especially in the Hyperion. Milton does it so well in the Fourth Book of Paradise Lost that I defy any man of a sane understanding to read the whole of that book before going to bed and not to wake up next morning as though he had been on a journey. William Morris does it, especially in the verses about a prayer over the corn; and as for Virgil, the poet Virgil, he does it continually like a man whose very trade it is. Who does not remember the swimmer who saw Italy from the top of the wave?

Here also let me digress. How do the poets do it? (I do not mean where do they get their power, as I was asking just now of Shakespeare, but how do the words, simple or complex, produce that effect?) Very often there is not any adjective, sometimes not any qualification at all: often only one subject with its predicate and its statement and its object. There is never any detail of description, but the scene rises, more vivid in colour, more exact in outline, more wonderful in influence, than anything we can see with our eyes, except perhaps those things we see in the few moments of intense emotion which come to us, we know not whence, and expand out into completion and into manhood.

Catullus does it. He does it so powerfully in the opening lines of

Vesper adest...

that a man reads the first couplet of that Hymeneal, and immediately perceives the Apennines.

The nameless translator of the Highland song does it, especially when he advances that battering line -

And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

They all do it, bless their hearts, the poets, which leads me back again to the mournful reflection that it cannot be done in prose ...

Little friends, my readers, I wish it could be done in prose, for if it could, and if I knew how to do it, I would here present to you that Unknown Country in such a fashion that every landscape which you should see henceforth would be transformed, by the appearing through it, the shining and uplifting through it, of the Unknown Country upon which reposes this tedious and repetitive world.

Now you may say to be that prose can do it, and you may quote to me the end of the Pilgrim's Progress, a very remarkable piece of writing. Or, better still, as we shall be more agreed upon it, the general impression left upon the mind by the book which set me writing - Mr. Hudson's Crystal Age. I do not deny that prose can do it, but when it does it, it is hardly to be called prose, for it is inspired. Note carefully the passages in which the trick is worked in prose (for instance, in the story of Ruth in the Bible, where it is done with complete success), you still perceive an incantation and a spell. Indeed this same episode of Ruth in exile has inspired two splendid passages of European verse, of which it is difficult to say which is the more national, and therefore the greatest, Victor Hugo's in the Legende des Siecles or Keats's astounding four lines.

There was a shepherd the other day up at Findon Fair who had come from the east by Lewes with sheep, and who had in his eyes that reminiscence of horizons which makes the eyes of shepherds and of mountaineers different from the eyes of other men. He was occupied when I came upon him in pulling Mr. Fulton's sheep by one hind leg so that they should go the way they were desired to go. It happened that day that Mr. Fulton's sheep were not sold, and the shepherd went driving them back through Findon Village, and up on to the high Downs. I went with him to hear what he had to say, for shepherds talk quite differently from other men. And when we came on to the shoulder of Chanctonbury and looked down upon the Weald, which stretched out like the Plains of Heaven, he said to me: "I never come here but it seems like a different place down below, and as though it were not the place where I have gone afoot with sheep under the hills. It seems different when you are looking down at it." He added that he had never known why. Then I knew that he, like myself, was perpetually in perception of the Unknown Country, and I was very pleased. But we did not say anything more to each other about it until we got down into Steyning. Then we drank together and we still said nothing more about it, so that to this day all we know of the matter is what we knew when we started, and what you knew when I began to write this, and what you are now no further informed upon, namely, that there is an Unknown Country lying beneath the places that we know, and appearing only in moments of revelation.

Whether we shall reach this country at last or whether we shall not, it is impossible to determine.

-- Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953).

Compare how Hobbes and Augustine think the condition of war

Compare how Hobbes and Augustine think the condition of war arises and defend one author's account of 'ordinary' morality as an antedote for it.

Augustine believes that the condition of war arises when the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God is disrupted (The City of God, 690) whereas Hobbes believes that the original state of nature is a condition of constant war, which rational and self-motivated people want to end.

Augustine argues that peace is more than the absence of hostilities - it is a state of harmony that makes possible the full functioning of human beings. Full functioning comes from the four internal virtues (courage, justice, temperance, and prudence) that we must exercise to achieve good human morality. Human morality, by and of its self, will not allow us humans to travel to our moral destination. It is only an exercise of the four virtues so that we as humans can achieve some sort of peace on our own through God's saving grace.
To Augustine, humans seek an object of love they can't lose. The problem with that to humans is that humans can't provide that to other humans completely. Only God can and that in turn causes hostility among humans. The love of God, then, is the only way humans can completely satisfy all four virtues and have eternal peace. Eternal peace is where faith, love, and hope are to be enjoyed, such as in The City of God.
In Book XIX, Augustinian social theory summarizes the principle of ordered harmony. This theory finds perfection in a mutual society that believes in God. Believing in God, though, lends a problem in the simple rule of justice: how do we give each other their due? Seemingly, war or hostility would not be a part of a Christian's life on earth. Augustine counters by indicating that war may be and is waged by God's commandment. To Augustine, waging war out of obedience to God is very different than to wage war for personal gain. But even wars caused by unselfish humans can be profitable to the faithful through patience and discipline to God. Augustine seems to believe that war is waged so that peace may be obtained. Since we all seek peace, war, then, can be obligatory when evil has control.
Hobbes, on the other hand, believes that war is a natural condition of mankind. Although Hobbes and Augustine seem to both believe that there needs to be one source of law (Augustine, God and Hobbes, Social Contracts), Hobbes takes off to suggest that we are motivated by selfish self interests and because of that, we are better off living in a world of moral rules. Without there rules we are at the mercy of other people's self - interest. War becomes the need to gain control of our own environments when others try to exploit us.
These self - interests are Hobbe's way of saying that all of our actions are a product of our own beliefs. We believe we are more superior than anyone else other than God and this natural passion brings in the first law of nature according to Hobbes: Liberty of man to reason. We all wish to reason for ourselves and we expect others to understand this as they want the same. Therefore, war comes from the lack of others respecting your feelings, to some degree.
The second law of nature, where we should lay down our liberty when others do as well, brings out a sense of unity between us. If we give up our rights to each other then we will all be happy and that leads to peace. The third law of nature is to do to others as they do you. Seemingly this authorizes, even demands, war when war is waged against you. But unless there is a betrayal, war would be against the law of nature.
The fourth law of nature, to show gratitude to others who benefit you, is a take off of the love thy neighbor theme, it seems. It follows that if I help you in war then you have benefited me and I should benefit you in return for a mutal defence. Preservation is a self - interest and we all desire that.
Overall, I believe that Hobbe's theory cast closer to Lord of the Flies than Augustine's. The way the boys separate into groups (ie: hunters and the peaceful) shows a return to the basics of life. The boys chose to go with the hunters out of fear or that not going with them (knowing a monster was out there) would bring on a more favorable result. I would assume this is a form of Consequentialism because the action was best for the boy himself or for the group.
In Lord of the Flies, hostilities grew out of each boy's own self-interest for desire, be it safety, food, shelter, or peer attention and companionship in numbers. Based on Hobbes theory, when the hunters stole the knife or eyeglasses from the peaceful boys, the hunters were simply acting in their own rational self-interest. Whether they were morally correct or not is a different question. But their attempt to set their own set of moral rules through their actions demonstrates their basic need to control their own self-interests.

Commitment - Hot Article

Compare how Hobbes and Augustine think the condition of war arises and defend one author's account of 'ordinary' morality as an antedote for it.
Augustine believes that the condition of war arises when the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God is disrupted (The City of God, 690) whereas Hobbes believes that the original state of nature is a condition of constant war, which rational and self-motivated people want to end.

Augustine argues that peace is more than the absence of hostilities - it is a state of harmony that makes possible the full functioning of human beings. Full functioning comes from the four internal virtues (courage, justice, temperance, and prudence) that we must exercise to achieve good human morality. Human morality, by and of its self, will not allow us humans to travel to our moral destination. It is only an exercise of the four virtues so that we as humans can achieve some sort of peace on our own through God's saving grace.
To Augustine, humans seek an object of love they can't lose. The problem with that to humans is that humans can't provide that to other humans completely. Only God can and that in turn causes hostility among humans. The love of God, then, is the only way humans can completely satisfy all four virtues and have eternal peace. Eternal peace is where faith, love, and hope are to be enjoyed, such as in The City of God.
In Book XIX, Augustinian social theory summarizes the principle of ordered harmony. This theory finds perfection in a mutual society that believes in God. Believing in God, though, lends a problem in the simple rule of justice: how do we give each other their due? Seemingly, war or hostility would not be a part of a Christian's life on earth. Augustine counters by indicating that war may be and is waged by God's commandment. To Augustine, waging war out of obedience to God is very different than to wage war for personal gain. But even wars caused by unselfish humans can be profitable to the faithful through patience and discipline to God. Augustine seems to believe that war is waged so that peace may be obtained. Since we all seek peace, war, then, can be obligatory when evil has control.
Hobbes, on the other hand, believes that war is a natural condition of mankind. Although Hobbes and Augustine seem to both believe that there needs to be one source of law (Augustine, God and Hobbes, Social Contracts), Hobbes takes off to suggest that we are motivated by selfish self interests and because of that, we are better off living in a world of moral rules. Without there rules we are at the mercy of other people's self - interest. War becomes the need to gain control of our own environments when others try to exploit us.
These self - interests are Hobbe's way of saying that all of our actions are a product of our own beliefs. We believe we are more superior than anyone else other than God and this natural passion brings in the first law of nature according to Hobbes: Liberty of man to reason. We all wish to reason for ourselves and we expect others to understand this as they want the same. Therefore, war comes from the lack of others respecting your feelings, to some degree.
The second law of nature, where we should lay down our liberty when others do as well, brings out a sense of unity between us. If we give up our rights to each other then we will all be happy and that leads to peace. The third law of nature is to do to others as they do you. Seemingly this authorizes, even demands, war when war is waged against you. But unless there is a betrayal, war would be against the law of nature.
The fourth law of nature, to show gratitude to others who benefit you, is a take off of the love thy neighbor theme, it seems. It follows that if I help you in war then you have benefited me and I should benefit you in return for a mutal defence. Preservation is a self - interest and we all desire that.
Overall, I believe that Hobbe's theory cast closer to Lord of the Flies than Augustine's. The way the boys separate into groups (ie: hunters and the peaceful) shows a return to the basics of life. The boys chose to go with the hunters out of fear or that not going with them (knowing a monster was out there) would bring on a more favorable result. I would assume this is a form of Consequentialism because the action was best for the boy himself or for the group.
In Lord of the Flies, hostilities grew out of each boy's own self-interest for desire, be it safety, food, shelter, or peer attention and companionship in numbers. Based on Hobbes theory, when the hunters stole the knife or eyeglasses from the peaceful boys, the hunters were simply acting in their own rational self-interest. Whether they were morally correct or not is a different question. But their attempt to set their own set of moral rules through their actions demonstrates their basic need to control their own self-interests.

Classical Theory Structure - Best Essay And Article

Introduction

By way of illustration, in this document we will describe and explain the classical structural theory as presented by Max Weber. To highlight the advantages and disadvantages of this classical structure as used in a realistic modern organization we will apply this theroy as used today in our public police department.

Classical Structural Theory

In the classical structural theory a person is hired for their technical expertise rather than on the recommendation of a connection from within the company. Generally these people are more inclined to work in very well-defined process oriented positions. Employees are given titles in which the authority to perform specific duties are vested. Outside of the defined position the employee has little or no authority.
Lines of authority and positions are clearly defined by formally established rules and regulations that help to ensure uniformity of operations, and provide for continuity of business as well as making responsibility easy to place. In his 10 points Weber implied that procedures imposed on all who fall within their reach are formal and impersonal (Pace & Faules, 1994, p. 30-31). In addition to these procedures, It is suggested that an attitude of discipline is an integral part of the organization that wants to promote efficiency (Pace & Faules, 1994, chapter 3). They are intentionally designed without attention to personal or emotional considerations to prevent distortion of employees' rational judgment in carrying out their assigned duties. Employees working in a classically structured organization are encouraged to maintain distinction between their private and professional lives. The last tenet of Max Weber's theory involves security and advancement. He held that security in a position was gained by tenure. For motivated individuals who want to advance their careers, hard work and achievement are viewed in this type of organization as the best way to develop a good rapport with the supervisor. Because responsibility is so easily laid on individuals, awarding recognition on an individual basis is the rule.
In today's society, even as we progress from the so-called Industrial Age to the Information Age, such organizations still exist. The police department is a high visibility organization that continues to utilize the ideas founded in classical theory. Potential officers are given a series of tests, both physical and mental, which determine to a great extent their probability of being hired. In line with Weber's work, each position in the department has a title which is representative of their level in the hierarchy (Pace & Faules, 1994, p. 30-31). Strict self discipline is praised and there are many policies in place to ensure that rational judgment is maintained. The most common way to advance in the police department is through time on the job. Seniority, especially when combined with competency, is given a great deal of weight. Maintaining the premise that authority is vested not in a person but in the position, when an officer leaves the force he or she looses the power to chase criminals through red lights, arrest drug lords, and perform other duties for which the authority rises out of the position once held.

Advantages of Classical Structural Theory

The opinion that easily identifiable structure and tightly managed rules and regulations are advantageous in public organizations is widely held. Structure and policy are of tremendous interest to all those interested in the uniformity and continuity of public safety.
The advantages of the classical structure within our example have multiple impacts on how the organization operates. As affirmed by Frederick Taylor, with a clear and concise reporting path we can visualize how the police department utilizes this in their daily operations (Pace & Faules, 1994, p. 32-33). In a crisis situation it is imperative that the police department work in a unison direction with as little verbal interaction as possible. This allows partners to communicate with a structural nonverbal direction. Strict rules guiding the behavior of officers on duty help to protect the public from officers acting out domestic aggressions at work. In this way, the separation of private and professional lives is a distinct advantage.

Disadvantages of Classical Structural Theory

Despite the many advantages associated with this type of arrangement within the police department, a number of disadvantages also exist. For employees, goals of advancement maybe slow to realize due to the tenure required to obtain various levels in the hierarchy. In addition to tenure, employees of the police department are also limited by budget restraints and number of employees needed to provide an acceptable level of service. For the public, the rules and regulations followed by officers leave little room for consideration of individual circumstances.

Conclusion

As a result of several years of this type of structure, and the culmination of several high tech jobs in the market place, many companies are beginning to move away from this type of organization. Companies have come to realize that employees' personal goals and environment are critical to their work performance, which classical structure tends to stagnate. Thus, it is the consensus of the group that classically structured organizations should start to examine the impacts that a more subjective approach to organizing may have on their specific organizations.

Childhood Delinquence

Remember doing something mischievous or wrong when you were a kid and getting the label "delinquent" slapped on you ? Did you ever wonder what it meant ? That is what my topic for today is . . . juvenile delinquency. In this report I will: define juvenile delinquency, give the extent of juvenile delinquency, give some suggestions on what causes juvenile delinquency, and what is being done in various communities to deal with this growing problem. The legal term juvenile delinquent was established so that young lawbreakers could avoid the disgrace of being classified in legal records as criminals.
Juvenile delinquency laws were designed to provide treatment, rather than punishment, for juvenile offenders. Young delinquents usually are sent to juvenile courts, where the main aim is to rehabilitate offenders, rather than to punish them. But the term juvenile delinquency itself has come to imply disgrace in today's society. A youngster can be labeled a delinquent for breaking any one of a number of laws, ranging from robbery to running away from home. But an action for which a youth may be declared a delinquent in one community may not be against the law in another community. In some communities, the police ignore many children who are accused of minor delinquencies or refer them directly to their parents. But in other communities, the police may refer such children to a juvenile court, where they may officially be declared delinquents. Crime statistics, though they are often incomplete and may be misleading, do give an indication of the extent
of the delinquency problem. The FBI reports that during the early 1980's, about two-fifths of all arrests in the United States for burglary and arson were of persons under the age of 18. Juveniles also accounted for about one-third of all arrests for larceny. During any year, about 4 % of all children between the ages of 10 and 18 appear in a juvenile court.
The percentage of youngsters in this group who are sent to court at least once is much higher. A third or more of those boys living in the slum areas of large cities may appear in a juvenile court at least once. Girls are becoming increasingly involved in juvenile delinquency. Today, about one of every five youngsters appearing in juvenile court is a girl. In the early 1900's, this ratio was about 1 girl to every 50 or 60 boys.
Sociologists have conducted a number of studies to determine how much delinquency is not reported to the police. Most youngsters report taking part in one or more delinquent acts, though a majority of the offenses are minor. Experts have concluded that youthful misbehavior is much more common than is indicated by arrest records and juvenile court statistics. Many studies have been made in an effort to determine the causes of delinquency. Most of these have focused on family relationships or on neighborhood or community conditions. The results of these investigations have shown that it is doubtful that any child becomes a delinquent for any single reason. Family Relationships, especially those between parents and individual children, have been the focus of several delinquency studies. An early study comparing delinquent and nondelinquent brothers showed
that over 90 % of the delinquents had unhappy home lives and felt discontented with their
life circumstances. Only 13 % of their brothers felt this way. Whatever the nature of the
delinquents' unhappiness, delinquency appeared to them to be a solution. It brought
attention to youths neglected by their parents, or approval by delinquent friends, or it
solved problems of an unhappy home life in other ways. More recent studies have revealed
that many delinquents had parents with whom they did not get along or who were inconsistent
in their patterns of discipline and punishment. Neighborhood conditions have been stressed
in studies by sociologists. Many of these inquiries concentrate on differing rates of
delinquency, rather than on the way individuals become delinquents. A series of studies
have shown that delinquency rates are above average in the poorest sections of cities.
Such areas have many broken homes and a high rate of alcoholism. They also have poor
schools, high unemployment, few recreational facilities, and high crime rates. Many young
people see delinquency as their only escape from boredom, poverty, and other problems.
Social scientists have also studied the influence of other youngsters on those who commit
delinquencies. For example, they point out that most youngsters who engage in delinquent
behavior do so with other juveniles and often in organized gangs. Studies indicate that
the causes of delinquency also extend to a whole society. For example, delinquency rates
tend to be high among the low-income groups in societies where most people are well-to-do.
The pain of being poor and living in slum conditions are felt more strongly in a rich
society than in a poor one. Many efforts have been made to develop programs of delinquency
prevention. There is little evidence, however, that any of these programs is truly
effective. Some programs provide counseling services to youths who appear to be on the verge of becoming delinquents. Other programs draw youngsters into clubs and recreational centers in an effort to keep them away from situations in which delinquency is likely to occur. In recent years, many efforts have centered on improving the educational and work skills of youngsters. For those juveniles who have already become delinquents, there are programs designed to prevent them from committing future delinquent acts. Probation services are offered through juvenile courts in an effort to provide guidance for delinquent children. The more progressive institutions for juveniles attempt to provide treatment programs for offenders--work experiences, counseling, education, and group therapy. However, many other institutions provide little more than protective custody for juvenile delinquents. In conclusion, I have defined juvenile delinquency, explained the extent of juvenile delinquency, gave some suggestions on what causes juvenile delinquency, and what is being done in various communities to deal with the problem of juvenile delinquency.

Charles Darwin and Imperialism

Child abuse is one of the saddest and most tragic problems in America today. Each year an estimated one to two million American children are being beaten, neglected, or sexually abused by their parents or guardians. Infants only a few days old as well as teenagers are subject to child abuse. There are four types of child abuse: physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse. Child abuse is a serious problem that plagues America's youth and should be stopped.

Physical abuse is a form of child abuse that should be stopped as soon as possible. According to social agencies, beatings of children have multiplied over the past twenty years. Physical abuse is any abuse that is harmful to the child. This kind of abuse includes the physical discipline which results in observable injuries on the child. It also includes use of a life-threatening weapon, like a gun or a knife, against a child and any abuse resulting in death. Any abuse which results in a sever injury requiring prompt medical attention, that could be life threatening, that could cause mental and/or physical impairment, could cause disfigurement, or chronic pain is too classified as physical child abuse. Another form of physical abuse is any knowing or willful mistreatment which in the opinion of a licensed medical doctor causes great bodily harm and/or results in hospitalization for treatment of this injury or condition; this may include physical injury sustained as a result of abuse or conditions which result from a parent's willful failure to act to stop this from happening to the child.

Physical neglect is defined as failure to provide for a child's physical survival needs to the extent that there is harm or risk of harm to the child's health and safety. Physical neglect includes these four things: inadequate food, inadequate shelter, inadequate medical care, and inadequate supervision. Forty-two percent of all child abuse reports involve allegations of physical neglect. The inadequate food element includes a child intentionally or deliberately not getting fed or given water. It also includes a diagnosis by a physician of failure to thrive because of a parent's failure to feed the child. Inadequate shelter includes prolonged and serious illness resulting from exposure to the elements or to serious dangerous substances as evidenced by serious injury. Inadequate medical care
encompasses the child not receiving medical treatment for an injury, illness, or disability, and if left untreated, the condition is life-threatening, or will result in permanent impairment, or is a serious threat to public health. Inadequate supervision is dependent upon the child's age, developmental level, willingness to stay alone, time of day, awareness of what to do in case of an emergency, whether the child is responsible for watching younger brothers and/or sisters, whether the child had any physical or mental limitations that would make it difficult or impossible for the child to care for himself/herself, and/or any other applicable circumstances.


Some signs of neglect are obvious in children and others are not. A sign of neglect is that the child/children have repeated injuries that are not properly treated or adequately explained. Another sign of neglect is that the child/children begin acting in unusual ways ranging from disruptive and aggressive to passive and withdrawn. Their sleep is disturbed (nightmares, bedwetting, fear of sleeping alone). They lose all of their appetite or they overeat. There is a sudden drop in school grades or participation in school or after school activities. They may act in stylized ways, such as sexual behavior that is not normal for their age group.

Sexual abuse is defined as acts of sexual harassment and sexual exploitation of minors. Sexual abuse encompasses a broad range of behavior and may consist of many acts over a long period of time or a single incident. The nature of sexual abuse, the shame of the child victim, and the possible involvement of trusted parents, stepparents, or other persons in a caretaker role make it extremely difficult for children to come forward to report sexual abuse. Sexual contact is the intentional touching of the victim's intimate parts, whether on top of or underneath of the victim's clothing, if that intentional touching can be reasonably interpreted as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or satisfaction. Sexual penetration includes oral sex, anal intercourse, or any intrusion, no matter how insignificant, of any part of a person's body or object into the genital or anal openings of another person's body. Sexual abuse may also include child pornography, child prostitution, or exposure of children to sexual acts or materials depicting sexual acts.

Emotional abuse includes verbal assaults, ignoring and indifference, or constant family conflict. It also includes punishments like locking the child in a dark closet. Sometimes such behaviors can cause serious mental disorders. If a child is degraded enough, the child will begin to live up to the image that is being communicated by the abusing parent or caretaker. This type of abuse is the hardest kind to notice because it leaves no bruises. A child who is emotionally abused may seem withdrawn, or act out frustration by abusing other children, animals, or belongings.

Child abuse is a serious problem that plagues America's youth and must be stopped. Physical abuse and physical neglect can hurt someone to the point of having to visit the hospital or even death. Sexual abuse can cause injury and scar someone for life with the memories of the act or acts of sexual abuse the child had done to him/her. Emotional abuse can also scar someone for life in the sense that it can change your all around behavior about the world and everyone in it because of one incident or a series of acts that occurred in your childhood. Child abuse must be stopped in order to have a normal and prosperous youth of tomorrow.

Categorical Imperative vs Utilitarianism

Kant: the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical Imperative
Kantian philosophy outlines the Universal Law Formation of the
Categorical Imperative as a method for determining morality of actions.
This formula is a two part test. First, one creates a maxim and
considers whether the maxim could be a universal law for all rational beings. Second, one determines whether rational beings would will it to be a universal law. Once it is clear that the maxim passes both prongs
of the test, there are no exceptions. As a paramedic faced with a
distraught widow who asks whether her late husband suffered in his
accidental death, you must decide which maxim to create and based on the
test which action to perform. The maxim "when answering a widow's
inquiry as to the nature and duration of her late husbands death, one
should always tell the truth regarding the nature of her late husband's
death" (M1) passes both parts of the Universal Law Formation of the
Categorical Imperative. Consequently, according to Kant, M1 is a moral
action.
The initial stage of the Universal Law Formation of the Categorical
Imperative requires that a maxim be universally applicable to all
rational beings. M1 succeeds in passing the first stage. We can easily
imagine a world in which paramedics always answer widows truthfully when
queried. Therefore, this maxim is logical and everyone can abide by it
without causing a logical impossibility. The next logical step is to
apply the second stage of the test.
The second requirement is that a rational being would will this maxim
to become a universal law. In testing this part, you must decide whether
in every case, a rational being would believe that the morally correct
action is to tell the truth. First, it is clear that the widow expects
to know the truth. A lie would only serve to spare her feelings if she
believed it to be the truth. Therefore, even people who would consider
lying to her, must concede that the correct and expected action is to
tell the truth. By asking she has already decided, good or bad, that she
must know the truth.
What if telling the truth brings the widow to the point where she
commits suicide, however? Is telling her the truth then a moral action
although its consequence is this terrible response? If telling the
widow the truth drives her to commit suicide, it seems like no rational
being would will the maxim to become a universal law. The suicide is,
however, a consequence of your initial action. The suicide has no
bearing, at least for the Categorical Imperative, on whether telling the
truth is moral or not. Likewise it is impossible to judge whether upon
hearing the news, the widow would commit suicide. Granted it is a
possibility, but there are a multitude of alternative choices that she
could make and it is impossible to predict each one. To decide whether
rational being would will a maxim to become a law, the maxim itself must
be examined rationally and not its consequences. Accordingly, the maxim
passes the second test.
Conversely, some people might argue that in telling the widow a lie,
you spare her years of torment and suffering. These supporters of "white
lies" feel the maxim should read, "When facing a distraught widow, you
should lie in regards to the death of her late husband in order to spare
her feelings." Applying the first part of the Universal Law Formation of
the Categorical Imperative, it appears that this maxim is a moral act.
Certainly, a universal law that prevents the feelings of people who are
already in pain from being hurt further seems like an excellent
universal law. Unfortunately for this line of objection, the only reason
a lie works is because the person being lied to believes it to be the
truth. In a situation where every widow is lied to in order to spare her
feelings, then they never get the truth. This leads to a logical
contradiction because no one will believe a lie if they know it a lie
and the maxim fails.
Perhaps the die-hard liar can regroup and test a narrower maxim. If it
is narrow enough so that it encompasses only a few people, then it
passes the first test. For example, the maxim could read, "When facing a
distraught widow whose late husband has driven off a bridge at night,
and he struggled to get out of the car but ended up drowning, and he was
wearing a brown suit and brown loafers, then you should tell the widow
that he died instantly in order to spare her feelings." We can easily
imagine a world in which all paramedics lied to widows in this specific
situation.
That does not necessarily mean that it will pass the second test
however. Even if it does pass the first test, narrowing down maxim can
create other problems. For instance circumstances may change and the
people who were originally included in the universal law, may not be
included anymore. Consequently you many not want to will your maxim to
be a universal law. Likewise, if one person can make these maxims that
include only a select group of people, so can everyone else. If you
create a maxim about lying to widows that is specific enough to pass the
first test, so can everyone else. One must ask if rational beings would
really will such a world in which there would be many, many specific,
but universal, laws. In order to answer this question, one must use the
rational "I" for the statement "I, as a rational being would will such a
world," not the specific, embodied "I" which represents you in your
present condition. You must consider that you could be the widow in the
situation rather than the paramedic, then decide whether you would will
such a universal law.
I agree with the morality based on Kantian principles because it is
strict in its application of moral conduct. Consequently there is no
vacillating in individual cases to determine whether an action is moral
or not. An action is moral in itself not because of its consequences but
because any rational being wills it to be a universal law and it does
not contradict itself. Regardless of what the widow does with the
information, the act of telling her the truth, is a moral one. No one
would argue that telling the truth, if she asks for it, is an immoral
thing to do. Sometimes moral actions are difficult, and perhaps in this
situation it would be easier to lie to the widow, but it would still be
an immoral action that I would not want everyone to do. This picture of
morality resonates with my common sense view of morality. If the widow
subsequently commits suicide or commits any other immoral act as a
consequence, that has no bearing on the morality of the original action
in itself.
Utilitarianism would differ on this point. Utilitarianism outlines that
an action is moral if it increases the total happiness of society.
Morality is based on consequences. Telling a lie to the widow would
increase her happiness and consequently would, at least possibly, be a
moral action. Utilitarianism would also take into account the precedent
set by lying; however, the analysis still rests on predicted consequence
rather than on the action's intrinsic moral value. The morality of
telling the lie is on a case by case basis. In some situations, it might
be better to tell the truth, and according to utilitarianism that would
then be the moral action. Unlike Kantian philosophy, one is not bound by
an immutable universal law. Instead one must judge in each case which
action will produce the most overall happiness. The problem with this
approach is that morality loses any value as a universal or intrinsic
quality. Every decision is made on an individual basis in an individual
and specific situation. In fact, utilitarianism considers happiness to
be the only intrinsically valuable end.
Defenders of utilitarianism claim that it maintains universality by
considering the greatest happiness of all beings, rather than just
individual happiness. Still, the morality is based on constantly
changing and often unpredictable consequences. The requirement that one
consider all of the consequences of an action and determine the best
possible action through such calculations makes me reject utilitarianism
as a method of determining morality.
Although utilitarianism often offers the easier solution to perform
because it produces immediate gratification and allows many exceptions
to common sense moral codes, the answers it gives are unfilling and
unrealistic. Furthermore, it is difficult, if not impossible, to make
all of the required calculations beforehand. Kant's solution, although
as interpreted by Kant is sometimes overly extreme, is much better than
utilitarianism. It resonates with my moral sensibilities to consider
that actions are moral or immoral regardless of their immediate
consequences. I am willing to accept that sometimes the moral action is
harder to perform, but I am unwilling to accept that morality rests
within the specifics of a situation and the possible consequences.
Therefore, I consider Kant's Universal Law Formation of the Categorical
Imperative to be a better test of morality than Mill's Utilitarianism.