The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1918-10-02
HEART TO
HEART TALKS
By Oscar Godfrey Klinger.
1. The Sunday Closing Question.
3. The Ethical View.

Il am" Il can" 81 ought" 81
will" are expressions constantly on
human lips and constitute the major
coin of conversation. They are used
with little thought of their stupen-
dous meaning. Il am" declares one
to be self-conscious being q can"
expresses a consciousness of power
because fself-conscious being; 81
ought" afFirms duty and obligation
growing out of conscious relation
ship; Il will" reveals a sense of self
determination, the ability to follow
out pathway of ones own choosing
Self-consciousness and self-deter-
mination constitute the essence of
personality, and personality is the
image of God in which man was
made. Because of his personality he
is Sthe highest creature in the CON
ception of omnipotent creative en-
ergy. What a piece of work is
man! How noble in reason! How
infinite in faculties! in form how adj
mirable! in action how like an angel /!
in apprehension like a godp So
Shakespeare, and the psalmist de-
clares, "Thou hast made him but lit
tie lower than Godp
The essential greatness of man lies
in his ethical nature. He is a being
with a conscience and capable of
moral judgments. By conscience we
mean crystal-clear recognition of
a difference in the moral quality of
an act of conduct 1t is an endow-
ment of human nature and therefore
universal in the race. No people has
ever been found in whom was lack
ing the sense of right and wrong. BY
moral judgment we mean a iudg-
ment made by the intellect in de-
termining the rightness or wrongness
of an act of conduct in the light Of
an objective standard. That object
i've standard may be the will of a
chieftain, the custom of a tribe, or
the teaching of religious leader.
The objective standard of the Chinese
is the teaching of Confucius; of the
Persians the doctrines of Zoroaster
of the Hindoos, the philosophy of
Buddha; of the Mohammedans, the
book of the Koran; of the Christian
nations, the Word of God. An act of
conduct must square with the object
i've standard or be adjudged wrong.
The Hindoo mother when she throws
her babe to the sacred crocodile is
performing the highest act of wor-
ship. The Turk is doing a deed pc
culiarly pleasing to Allah when he
murders an Armenian Christian. The
objective standard Of Christianity
teaches that sin is not in the overt
act, but in the imaginings of the
heart. The man who thinks murder is
murderer The man who looks
on woman to lust after her is an
adulterer. SO a study of the ethics
of the world shows that what for any
people is right and what is wrong is
determined by the moral judgment
in the light of the objective stand
ard. The moral judgment, since it is
the intellect exercising its judgments
in the sphere of conduct, is capable
of education; is rather a matter
wholly of education, and sc accounts
for the difference in ethical creeds
in different places and in different
ages.
The capacity to become a personal
being is the endowment which God
gives to every babe born into the
world, but personality must be
achieved by long and determined en-
deavor; it is the product Of the souls
action upon a society of reacting per-
sons. Were the babe left alone in
the world it would remain mentally
babe. When a prisoner is placed in
solitary confinement his reason lasts
about eight years. Interaction with
others is the condition of developing
and maintaining personality; in ther
words, each individual mus I've a
social life: isolation is impossible! In
living social life there arises a con-
hict of interests; each member of a
social unity has his rights. One Of
the first lessons to be learned, there
fore, is respect for the right If 9th
ers. Their rights become my due
and my rights become their due: that
is, rights and duties constitute the
sum of ones ethical life. We rise i'll