consequence, the actual existence of a complex mechanism with many parts and many functions, there must be a corresponding social purpose which organizes and controls the various functions in the light of the total requirements and resources. Otherwise it is inevitable that the invisible hand of a beneficent providence shall turn out to be the all too visible hand of those who can best scheme and exploit for their own selfish ends.

It is this present situation in which civilization finds itself which sets the task for ethics, an ethics for which I should care to offer an apology. No such ethics exists, or ever will exist, as a finished and completed system. But there is at hand a body of knowledge, as yet but imperfectly organized, and there are hypotheses which may be put to the test of facts and of experience, which make a beginning of such a science of ethics. Ethics would become the focussing point for our knowledge of human needs, and for our human, social resources which are at hand to supply those needs. It would still remain, what in part it has always been, a survey and an estimate of human values, of what men want, of what human nature demands. I see no theoretically insuperable difficulty in reaching a scientific knowledge of what the needs of human nature really are. In this part of its enquiry ethics would be comparable, say, to dietetics, which aims to discover the amount and kinds of food that the body requires under varying circumstances. Dietetics, indeed, as a science, pays little enough attention to what individuals happen to like and dislike, to the vagaries and idiosyncrasies of taste. It offers a descriptive survey of objective structures and functions. Ethics has, in large measure, been content to take into its reckoning only subjective ideals and aspirations, divorced from any objective knowledge of needs and of functions. Traditional ethics may be compared with a pre-scientific dietetics which should consult the purely subjective tastes, gastronomic norms and ideals of individuals,

without knowing anything about the physiological processes which supply the objective basis for food values. Now, the processes of history, the efforts of men to build up social institutions, the groping of men toward justice, truth, and human companionship, these recognized wants and ideals, are related to ascertainable needs and functions of human nature just as food values are related to the scientifically knowable structures and functions of the human body. There is no appeal here save to the facts.

But this is only half the task. We need an objective basis not merely for our knowledge as to the needs and functions of human nature; we need also to enquire into the way in which, at any given time and place, these needs are being supplied. At the present time, certainly, if not throughout man's history, the resources available for the satisfaction of human wants exist in the form of, or are bound up with, the organized life of society. They are, in the broadest sense of the term, social institutions. Once more to revert to our analogy, social institutions are related to those human necessities and requirements which it comes within the scope of ethics to ascertain, just as food resources are related to the physiological requirements of the body. The consequence is that ethics becomes an inquiry into the adequacy of existing social institutions to satisfy the requirements of human nature as they may be known to exist at any given time. Ethics thus becomes the focussing point not only for the psychological sciences, but for the historical and social sciences as well. Obviously, one cannot plunge at once into the social resources of civilization, the existing social capital, without a preliminary knowledge of the way in which this capital, these ideas and institutions, have come to be what they are.

There are one or two possible misunderstandings of the implications of such a conception of ethics as I have

tried to set forth. Ethics is an inquiry into the nature of human needs and values, and also into the adequacy with which the available social resources, i.e., social institutions, are meeting these needs. The desirability of pursuing such an inquiry arises from the necessity of securing an intelligent control over the future development of civilization. This means a deliberate renunciation of laissez faire and of optimistic confidence in the invisible hand. It implies an increasing social control, based upon knowledge, of the various ways in which human wants are supplied. That it means a large increase, all along the line, of some form of socialism, I have personally no doubt whatever. But such an extension of intelligent, social control over an area which hitherto has been left to the free play of individual selfinterest will be tolerable only on one condition, that, namely, such control be really based upon knowledge, that the knowledge be widely diffused, and that it be continually subject to the correction of experience. The success of the extension of organized knowledge from the mastery of nature to the mastery of ourselves and of our destiny will depend upon the extent to which all controlled functions, individuals and groups, shall understand the basis, in objective facts, for the existence of such control. It is only the diffusion of knowledge that will enable individuals to participate in a social purpose which organizes and directs the development of human relations and institutions. Moreover, the knowledge which shall serve to organize the life of men in society must shed every vestige of dogma and of sheer authority; it must be experimental. And there will need to be a much wider diffusion among men of the experimental temper, of the willingness to be tolerant, and to submit ideas to the test of experience, than has hitherto been the case. Providing these conditions are fulfilled, I see not the slightest reason for fearing that the application of knowledge to the control of human society would mean

the authoritative regimentation and Prussianizing of civilization, the coming of the servile state, which has so often seemed the only alternative to individualism and the invisible hand.

I may be permitted to say a word as to the proper attitude and spirit which should go with the study and teaching of ethics thus understood. If the central thing in ethics be, as I have said, the appraising of human needs and the adequacy with which they are being supplied by the existing structures of civilization, then it will not be strange if serious defects and opportunities for improvement are brought home to the mind of the student. There is a pathology of civilization as well as an anatomy and a physiology. But while this is soindeed if it were otherwise there would be no occasion for any study of ethics at all—it should go without saying that nothing whatever in the shape of propaganda belongs in the ethics classroom, except the propaganda of openmindedness and intellectual integrity. I mention this here because I have been surprised to find those who have thought that the teaching of philosophy, and accordingly of ethics, implied the attempt to make disciples and to convert one's students to the beliefs which oneself holds dear. Where, as in ethics, the problems discussed are those which stir men's feelings, which involve the fate of established interests and institutions, it is all the more imperative that habits of critical analysis and rigidly objective observation should be inculcated and fostered.

Since I have touched upon the teaching of ethics, and since my audience is in part an academic one, I may, in closing, say a word about the function of the university in furthering the increase of our knowledge of human life, and in making possible the application of such knowledge to the practical affairs of men. There are three functions in this matter which it is essential for a university to perform, especially a state university

in a democratic society. The first of these is the organization and fostering of all studies directed upon the present problems of civilization. Effectively to accomplish this, there must be intellectual coöperation upon the widest possible scale. Traditional lines of cleavage between the studies dealing with the life of man in society must be overcome. There will need to be built up a comprehensive yet flexible mechanism for bringing together and making accessible the existing store of knowledge, the intellectual capital, bearing upon the problems of society. Scholars and workers in every branch of this field must be trained to see the bearing of their specialized pursuits upon the problem as a whole.

But secondly, there will be an increasing need in the society of the future not only of men who are investigators and organizers of knowledge, but of men charged with the business of converting theory into practice. These are the men who in one capacity or another will perform useful social functions in a professional and scientific spirit. They will be civil officers, public servants, captains of industry, teachers, and many others. The possibilities here are without limit. Whenever any body of knowledge comes into existence which should be utilized in the fulfilment of a social function, there will be the nucleus for a vocational or professional school. The only alternatives are quackery and demagogy. I believe that there are already opportunities here upon which our universities should seize. A School of Politics, to train men for all branches of public and social service could, to great advantage, be organized at once in the University of California.

But there is a third function, and, in my judgment, the most important. The best efforts of the university should be directed to diffusing among all students who come to the university a knowledge of the existing problems of civilization, and some idea of what it would mean