Page:Historyaspasteth00myeruoft.pdf/18

element. Conscience becomes ever more and more involved in the personal, national, and international affairs of the world.

The history of morals in the main a record of the expansion of the circle covered by the moral feelings Moral progress consists not so much in changes in the quality of intensity of the moral emotions, although these gain in diversity, purity, and refinement as time passes, as in the succsesive enlargements of the circle of persons embraced by the moral feelings.^[1] "It is not the sense of duty to a neighbor, but the practical answer to the question, Who is my neighbor? that has varied."^[2] As we shall see when we come to examine the morality of primitive man, the moral feelings embrace at first only kinsmen, that is, the members of one's own family, clan, or social group. All others are outside the moral pale. But gradually this circle grows larger and embraces in successive expansions the tribe, the city, the nation, and lastly humanity.

This expansion of the area covered by the moral feelings is the dominant fact in the moral history of mankind. It is the overlooking of this fact that has caused writers like Buckles to make their strange misreading of history and to maintain that though man during historic times has made immense progress on material and intellectual lines, he has made little or no progress in morality. The truth is, as we shall learn, that in no domain has progress been greater, the gains larger or more precious, than in the moral. From clan morality, based on physical kinship, mankind has advanced or is advancing to world morality, based on the ethical kinship of men. This is the one increasing purpose running through all history—the creation of moral order embracing the whole human race.

Sources for the history of morals The facts for a history of morals must be sought chiefly outside the literature of ethical theory and speculation. They