The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-11
PROP. STEWARDS LECTURE
DELIVERED LAST EVENING AT THE
UNIVERSITY LABORATORY.
"Ethics, It's Practical Application to
Right Methods of Training"-An
Interesting Address, with Many
Valuable Suggestions.

Professor William M. stewart uSIIN-
cred an interesting lecture at the uni
versity laboratory last night, his sub
iect being Ethics, Its Practical Appli-
cation in Right Methods OF Training.
He said in part:
The aim of every human being is hap
piness, present enjoyment and future
pleasure. That which is happiness to
each individual depends upon heredity,
education and present environment. Be
ing product of this world we have be-
come more or less adjusted to it, and
proportionately as that adjustment is
harmonious and complete so is our
happiness. Ethics postulates an ideal
harmony, toward which humanity must
move to secure happiness. In its
strictest sense ethics is that science
which deals with the relations of con-
duct to ideals, both individual and
God universal. We must proceed in
ethics as in all scientific Investigations,
on the basis of law or of fixed rela
tions. The law of cause and effect
governs human volition, thought and
feeling, as it governs the physical
forces of the universe. The science of
conduct connects the links of the great
chain of causes in human conduct, as
geology connects the successive changes
which has led up to the present forms
CT the earth's surface; so to understand
the race today, its history must be
known, and to understand the present
thought and feeling of the individual
we must connect them with those of
the past. The child comes into the
world, not blank, but a bundle of
inhNT~r oar hi in
herited from his ancestors and the race.
He is thus partially adjusted to the
world in which he finds himself, and
Immediately begins to harmonic him
self with his environment. Ethics is
concerned with this voluntary adjust
nent to the ideal harmony of the uni
verse. Every mind, both individualizes
and universities it's ideals. The fixed
or unusual ideal is God, or the untold
truth, which is the same yesterday, to-
day and forever; the Individual ideal is
constantly modified by experience and
knowledge, varying in the direction of
the universal ideal God. Destroy the
universal ideals and you destroy the
objective point in existence; lower the
individual indeals and effort is misdi-
rected, make them fixed and progress
ceases. The mind, when free, acts on
the basis of its experience, and an at !
tempt to make it act in a contrary
by external restraint, tends to !
make stationary the ideals or lower |
them. The great problem in ethics is.
now can conditions be made most fav-
orable to the development of high ideals |
and their realization in conduct?
Economy is the highest expression of !
law IN nature, so the greatest economy
IN human thought and feeling is the !
hlghest expression of moral law The
brilliant minds of today are engaged
IN economic financiering, and the accu-
mutation OF material wealth seems to
be the aim of our age. The eve of the
public is fixed on the economic expendi-
ture of money, and any apparent waste
Is met with tumultuous disapprovaI
put blinded by the appearance of things
the genuine waste of human energy. the
true cause-misdirected motives in in
dlVlduals, states and nations. as de-
termlned by their ethical relations-is
scarcely thought Of How easy to Gre
ATE false sentiment, an inordinate
passion and spend all the energies of
lie In their qualification. What do we
not sacrlhce to satisfy a mere senti |
ment with no purpose higher than mere
seinsh pride. What sorrows, woes and
leart aches result from bondage to
some emotion or passion. How MANY !
oI US put forth energy to be of most
ggheht TO ourselves and the world ?
ffo I' easy 1t is to enslave the soul!
Inc Dody and mind are so intimately
ceonhected that the excitation of the |
primer ! is necessary to the activity of
the Iatter; and the Immediate phvsica1
concomitant of the soul is the nervous |
system; consequently whatever greatly
stimulates nervous excitation occa sions |
the most intense activity of thought
teeing and emotion.
Inc way in which the body is treated |
determines, in a large degree, the NOR !
airy OF the soul; thus habit plays an
Important part in moral education |
Inc nervous system is the physical |
embodiment of the thought and feeling |
or ancestors and the instinct of rho |
race: in short, it is the past environ !
ment OF the parent and the race trans
mntted to the child. All feeling and |
have an instructive basis in
seh-preservation, and the awareness
Oh selt-lntereSt is awakened in the
mind through pleasure and pain. which
may be present in consciousness as
occasioned directly by bodily excita-
ton, or by images of the imagination
The environment is in harmony with
the internal order when pleasure is
awakened and sympathy is the result.
when pain is awakened there is dis
cord followed by antipathy Sympathy
may lead to love, antfpathy to hate
We here have the beginning of the
moral and immoral feelings, in the
conflict of motives, which concern the
interests of self and others. While I
awakens the desire to act
FOR others, knowledge must determine
the means to the good end. A neces-
sary condition for the expression of
is freedom, absence from all
external restraint. Voluntary action
IS conditioned by two kinds of mo-
lives; first, those which spring from
the mind itself, through a knowledge
Of the effects, of the acts upon self
nal will; second those determined by
the will of another through the hope
IF reward or the fear of punishment.
The latter motive is immoral and the
will furnishing the occasion for such
an act may be a party to the immor-
atty. Responsibility always accom-
oanies freedom and is a recognition of
the self as cause in free action One
IF the highest moral incentives is that
which leads one to feel "a responsible
ty for the acts of others. We may
give as the four corner stones of the
science of ethics, sympathy, knowledge.
freedom and responsibility. Sympathy
S probably the strongest instinct in
The race, and when directed to self
is end it is pure selfshness; when di-
'ected to the world of related objects
t is pure knowledge; when
directed to the good of humanity
t is pure morality, and when
directed to the unity of truth, or God,
t pure religion. In it's specific sense,
is that feeling which in
:ludes others in the harmony of self,
md it reaches its highest ideal when