The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1896-05-21


talistic power in exploitation, merely of
partisan domination in social legisla-
tion, merely of sectarian supremacy in
moral and spiritual development. They
ask first of all, What is the true end and
aim Of life? and then seek to present
conditions which may enable lives to
attain TO that end.
This was the aim of our forefathers in
defining their VIEWS, as they sought TO
establish and organize the American re-
public. In seeking for those rights which
were, by the very nature of man, in
alienable, they We're obliged to consider
the end and aim of his life, and they
stated it in our celebrated Declaration of
American Independence. Mans chief
right they emphasized as the right to
''life, liberty and the pursuit Of happi-
ness" Life was the acting subject,
liberty the required condition, happiness
the end.
But time changes even our view Of
the ends of life, and consequently our
statement Of fundamental live ques-
tions. Since the French philosophers
there have come Darwin and Haeckel
Since the mental atmosphere out of
which were evolved our Declaration Of
Independence and the French bill of
rights"-two documents which show
the same psychic parentagc--there has
surrounded US the mental atmosphere
of evolution, and philosophers now talk
of the rights Of man to his develop
ment, the rights of man in growth and
the duties of society in removing OBJ
structions to that growth.
Social theories must adapt themselves
to this change. The ages are not sta
tionary. The live questions of today
must use the language of the last decade
of the nineteenth century. They must
base their arguments on its conclu-
sions. The end of man is not happiness.
1t Is development, growth, individual
evolution, and the liberty at present
demanded is Liberation from that social
economic bondage which curtails, and
even threatens to destroy, individual
freedom and development. In this new
relation the word liberty" attains to
its true meaning. 1t is no longer capri
ctousness, no longer q mere individual
impulse. 1t is philosophical in its bear
ing and relations. 1t includes duties as
well as rights.
Does any one doubt the philosophical
change or the new social requirements?
Let him ask, What is happiness? Is it
not more than animal qualification? If
more, what more2 Happiness we may
define as the sensation we feel when vital
forces within us move in harmony to
their legitimate ends in expression. 1t
is the sense which accompanies the proc
ess toward the end and not the end in
itself. The delightful sensation of har-
mony III music, as compared with the
mere noise OF one monotonously repeat
ed note, illustrates the sensation Of hap.
piness. The individual man is an or
ganic whole. Each faculty and organ
has its note potentially attuned to every
other. They can play tunes Of harmony
or they can make only a discordant
noise. The bounding child represents
organic physical harmony. The enjoy
ment Of the man is the harmony of the
physical and the mental The change
from childhood to adult years reveals a
change IN the perception OF LIES ends.
Harmony is our consciousness of the
union Of sounds to an end-music. Hap
piness is our Consciousness of the union
Of vital forces to an end-development.
Growth is the true end of man; happi-
ness, the accompaniment.
But not only Is individual man an or
ganic whole; society is the same-that
is normal society. There is social hap
piness as well us individual happiness,
and both come by the same means and
arc obedient to the same law. The in
dividual cannot stand alone. Nine -tenths
of himself is submerged in the social
organism, The most Of himself Is keyed