morality connote the protection and promotion of the general interest.
A nation, a people, we are given to understand, have higher motives than money or "self-interest." What do we mean when we speak of the money of a nation, or the self-interest of a community? We mean—and in such a discussion as this can mean nothing else—better conditions for the great mass of the people, the fullest possible lives, the abolition or attenuation of poverty and of narrow circumstances; that the millions shall be better housed and clothed and fed, more capable of making provision for sickness and old age, with lives prolonged and cheered—and not merely this, but also that they shall be better educated, with character disciplined by steady labor and a better use of leisure; a general social atmosphere which shall make possible family affection, individual dignity and courtesy and the graces of life, not only among the few, but among the many.
Now, do these things constitute, as a national policy, an inspiring aim, or not? They are, speaking in terms of communities, pure self-interest—bound up with economic problems, with money. Does Admiral Mahan mean us to take him at his word when he would attach to such efforts the same discredit that one implies in talking of a mercenary individual? Would he have us believe that the typical great movements of our time—Socialism, Trades Unionism, Syndicalism, Insurance Acts, Land Reforms, Old Age Pensions, Charity Organization, improved Education—bound up as they all are with economic problems—are not the objects which, more and more, are absorbing the best activities of Christendom?
In the pages which follow, I have attempted to show that the activities which lie outside