- OF OUR COMMON ACCEPTANCES -
What are the common acceptances of all men, or at least of the masses of mankind? All of us hold to certain values - as, of right and wrong, good and bad, better and worse. We do not agree as to what and how and when, but without some concept of values, ideals of some sort society could not exist, nor any kind of directed and purposive action.
And all men, or nearly all, will admit that they are imperfect in character and conduct, in knowledge and achievement and wisdom. The thief admits imperfection in villainy, and the saint in his godliness. Ideals must differ, but they are possessed by all.
And feeling our imperfectness, we have a desire to learn, and to improve according to our idea of improvement. And we are convinced that we have a capacity to learn, some things at least, or in some ways. Because of this we feel also a need and desire for help, guidance, and instruction.
The guidance we need may come from others, or only from our own experience and reflection, from defeat and disaster, or from knowledge, insight, intuition, mystical experience. It may concern moral and religious ideals, or only how to buy and sell to better advantage, or to grow more skillful at some art or craft. But in general we believe that guidance and improvement are possible, and in some degree obtainable, once we turn our efforts toward that end.
Or if we feel that we cannot better ourselves in any practical art, we know that we can improve our conduct, and attitude toward others. We believe that the words will, and effort, and desire, and improvement have meaning, even tho the ideal of one man may seem evil to another, and the best wisdom of one is another's folly.
To these we must add the fact and sense of relationships. Each of us is meshed in the web of society, of laws and customs, sanctions and prohibitions, of community and state and nation, of race and world complexities. And the molecules and atoms and electrons of our bodies are united also, by the play of energy and natural laws (as of gravity, electricity, magnetism, the 'homogeneous ether') with all other atoms, of this and all other worlds... Science and philosophy and religion are at one in this concept, and it is the first and most unavoidable insight of the reflective mind.
The sense of values, of imperfection, of change and possible, improvement, and of interdependence and interrelationship, with other human beings and with nature - these are our common possessions. In the realm of the lower animals they exist hardly at all. All codes of conduct, all religion philosophy, Art, and science are founded upon these familiar elements. They lie beneath or behind all creeds. Thus, nothing is required of man save the desire for light and the will to discover it. Nothing, save that he shall not deny his own nature, the upward gravitation of his own incarnate spirit. Yielding only to this, he will discover Gods, or create them and destroy them at his need. It is only sloth and perversity which destroy him, but Desire and Discontent are his saviours.