sents the connection and adjustment, the criticism, of all
the other interests and relationships so as to form parts in
a many-sided good life. Even our duty to humanity in
general is chiefly possible through and by the community ;
it receives its form from our social ideas, and has to be
adjusted to the demands of citizenship. Humanity does
not exist as a whole in the same real way that the com-
munity does. It is true for us, as it was for the Greek,
that the organised society which we recognise as sovereign
is the field and sphere of good life for each of us.
Then how is this recognition to be worked out in our
lives ? Are we all to throw ourselves into municipal or
imperial politics, to spend our days in reading up about
Egypt and Uganda or Home Rule, in organising Liberal
associations or yellow flowering leagues ? Well, there must
be politics, and some people must take part in them, and
a healthy political interest is one mark of a good citizen.
But, as I said, we do not rightly indicate the duties of
citizenship by demanding that politics — that some separate
concern to be called citizenship — should play a great part
in our lives.
That is not the point. We must begin at the other
end. Our aim is not to expand direct public or political
action over our whole lives — that would narrow our lives,
not widen them — but to understand our whole lives in the
light of citizen ideas, in the light of a common good.
This, as I said, is hard in the modern world. And the
fact that it is hard is the reason why it is necessary.
The very solid and special interests and institutions of
modern society, if misunderstood, are limits which confine
and narrow each one of us, but, if rightly understood, are
incomparably effective instruments of our good will. Take,
for example, the family, as inherited by us from Roman
law and interpreted by Christianity. It is much stronger,
more exclusive, than the Greek family. No Greek citizen
could be wholly absorbed in his domestic relations. The
lo ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM i
position of women forbade it. They were not equal mates
for men, and the true life of the Greek lay outside his home.
An EngUshman or Englishwoman to-day may be absorbed
in the family. It is a real danger. What do we ask of
them in the name of citizenship ? To neglect their family
for local or parliamentary politics ? No. Just the reverse —
that is, to deepen their family sentiment by remembering
that the home is after all an element in the common good
of the community; that the wife and children are not play-
things, nor animals to be fed, nor instruments of social or
industrial advancement, but are members of a great nation,
that has a past and a future, and relations of duty and
participation in a common good, binding together all its
citizens. Thus the family will stand between its mem-
bers and the community, not as a blank wall may stand
between the eye and the sun, but as the half-way house
may stand between the beginning and the goal of a journey.
For thus our English homes will be nurseries of citizen-
ship and the symbols of the social will, and become some-
thing more, not something less, than they are to-day. So
too with the workshop, the neighbourhood, the Trades
Union, the profession. It is not that people ought to
jump out of the circumstances which put them in these
conditions, but that, while remaining in some recognised
groove, some accepted form of duty, they should bear in
mind that their little life only has value as embodying
some element of a common good. Therefore, while faith-
fully working in their groove, they must apply to it the best
conception of human welfare that they can. They must
criticise it, as we say in philosophy. Starting from this
idea they will find improvements to make — simple little
daily improvements. They will be pressed and coerced
by moral necessity to this and that piece of work which
their position and place brings to their hand, falling well
within conditions which they are familiar with in practice,
and which they will make it their duty to understand
theoretically as much as they are able. How far they
busy themselves with philanthropy or politics of any
kind will be a question of aptitude and opportunity. They
I THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP ii
will not be neglectful of local and municipal life, but yet
will always attempt to confine themselves to what they
understand, and to understand thoroughly whatever they
touch. They will avoid the illusion that duties which
deal with public matters are the only public duties. All
duties are public, or at least take us beyond the ordinary
self. Better probably than any philanthropy or politics is
the work of a successful employer of labour who has a
decently human relation to his employees.
But, no doubt, many people, especially women, have
not what may be called natural duties to fill their lives.
And also those who are engaged in a domestic or pro
fessional capacity may still have spare energy for public
work, and are in many ways the best qualified of all. Now,
in order to give some real detail to the sense of a common
good, and to make it a genuine force, whether one is in
an everyday groove or trying to do something of a public
or philanthropic kind, every one should try to understand
at least the outline of our system of local government, of
our Poor Law in relation to character, and something of the
history and conditions of industrial life. That comes
across us in every station and vocation. The busiest pro-
fessional people need such knowledge, because they are
apt, out of hurry and good-nature, to interfere at random
with other people's lives. The idle people need it terribly.
The least they could do would be to cease from working
mischief; and what a revolution that would make ! We
all spend money. We all employ labour. The least
wealthy of us, as an aggregate, employ most. How we
spend our money and what labour we employ determines
nothing less than this : on what things the working people
of this and other countries have to spend their lives, and
under what conditions their lives are to be spent. If we
will have nasty things, shoddy things, vulgar things, ugly
things, we are condemning somebody to make them. If
we will have impossibly cheap things, we are condemning
somebody to work without proper pay. But I am beginning
to trench on workshop training. General rules are danger-
ous, though' principles ought to be thoroughly grasped.
12 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM i
For any kind of reform, the thing is to understand your
particular business and the life of your district. All
depends on how you go to work. I have been hearing
about a northern town where it is alleged that bad sanitary
conditions prevail. The philanthropic people seem to have
got hysterical, and raised a public hue and cry, quoting
some cases in quite exaggerated language. The health
department has become exasperated. There is friction.
They cannot get things put right. They do not seem — I
speak at second-hand — to be able to find half a dozen
simple-minded people who will inform themselves quite
precisely of what nuisances exist in particular cases, and
then report them quietly but persistently to the health
department, adopting a friendly tone to the health ofificials;
and yet I do not doubt there is the usual charitable crowd
going to and fro in the city. If I am rightly informed,
this seems like want of understanding. Of course, in social
matters, you must keep your powder dry ; it is always
possible that you may have to fight — I mean, to enter
upon public controversy. But, as a rule, accurate know-
ledge, perseverance, and gentleness, confining yourself closely
to the matter in hand, and working out your principles
rather than flourishing them, are the way to do business.
Then, in conclusion, the duties of citizenship will not
necessarily drag us out of private life into politics, ad-
ministration, or philanthropy, though it may well be that
every one ought at least to be prepared to participate in
such functions if occasion should arise. But they emphatic-
ally call upon us never to forget that every duty of life is
ultimately a duty to develop the capacities of that human
nature which finds its fundamental condition and expression
in the many-sided whole of the organised community.
They call upon us, therefore, whether or no we undertake
what are known as public functions, at least to understand
our life as something which concerns the neighbourhood
and the nation in which it is spent. To " criticise " is
to adjust a part to its due and harmonious relations with a
whole. In this sense the conception of citizenship is a
standard by which our life — whether in the family, in the urban
I THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP 13
or rural neighbourhood, in trade or industry, in the Church,
or in the work of charity — may be, and must be, criticised
if it is to be in the full sense human. If we were bed-
ridden our whole life long, it would still make a difference
to others whether we spread around us a sensible and
unselfish or a selfish and frivolous atmosphere. If we were
scholars or astronomers, it would still concern our fellow-
countrymen and the world that our work should be a type
of sincerity, liberality, and devotion. But the issue at
stake is more than this, and cannot be exhausted by one
or two extreme illustrations. The shape and colour, so to
speak, the spirit, tone, and energy of life, throughout and
within every special sphere, will be altogether different
according as we have or have not striven to understand its
bearing, and the interlacing tissue of causation which
makes us materially, as also spiritually, members one of
another. And in such a criticism or adjustment we shall
recover the unity of principle which, at first sight, may
appear to have deserted the modern world.
II
THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP— C^/?//«^^^^
By B. BOSANQUET
Let us recall to begin with the conceptions suggested
in the previous Lecture.
We examined, in the first place, the pure or simple case
of citizenship, as it presented itself in the typical com-
munities of ancient Greece. Here we observed that the
path was plain, the interconnection of lives was obvious,
the oneness of purpose and of spirit throughout the society
of freemen was unmistakable. No subordinate " bodies,"
"interests," or "worlds," so strong as to be practically
isolated, barred off the individual from the state. What
for us is hard to discover, and perhaps impossible always
to remember — the relation of our lives to a common
good — was for him, in one form or another, impossible to
forget.
In the second place, we cast a glance at the wilderness
of " interests " which constitutes the intricate texture of
modern society. We noted the difficulty of finding any
clue to a unity between our surroundings, in which we are
imprisoned from birth, and the life and well-being of our
fellow-countrymen as a whole. "What is he?" we ask about
any of our neighbours, wishing to ascertain the relation
between his aims or interests and our own. The answer
may be given by naming his rank, his industry, his pro-
fession, or, again, by naming any one of a hundred social,
political, or religious movements, with which he has identi-
II THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP 15
fied himself. And for distinction's sake, such a selection
is necessary. But how confidently we draw the conclusion
that we shall find him a prisoner within the limitations
thus assigned, and that the adjustment of his isolated
" world " to the national life has never really presented
itself to him as a serious problem for study and for
criticism ? Is citizenship, we asked in effect, some depart-
ment of affairs outside and narrowed down by all these
ranks and interests and institutions, or does it rather
permeate them all as the life-blood of the organism, and
if it does, what does it demand of us, and where are we to
find it as a reality ?
And, in the third place, we returned to the idea of
citizenship as a clue to the criticism or adjustment or
unification of these separate " worlds " through a spirit
which takes account of social purpose as a whole. Not
for this,^ we suggested, is society organised, that any single
element should be wrapped up in its own purposes, and ,
seek its fulfilment in isolation, but that, as an organism
into which human nature unfolds itself, society throughout j
every subordinate function and institution should assert /
and maintain a harmonious principle of life. Therefore,
we urged, in every sphere or institution we must find not a
limit to our life, but an instrument of it; not a barrier, but
a half-way house. The strength and specialisation of these
subordinate worlds is a gain and not a loss, if, in deepen-
ing and enlarging some special organ of our consciousness —
the family affections, for example, or the tradition of law,
or the sense of religion, or the habit of discipline and
chivalrous courage — they can be prevented from absolutely
swallowing us up, or cutting us off from the many-sided
social self — the community as sovereign in virtue of the
general will — which is the condition and the expression of
our human nature as an organised whole.
Before proceeding with the illustrations of this principle
which were to occupy us to-day, I will say a word on the
^ Plato, Republic, Book IV. 420 B : " Not with this view arc we con-
structing our commonwealth, that any one body within it shall be super-
eminently prosperous."
i6 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM ii
supposed moral difficulty of the choice of our work, which
arises as a moral problem when we find ourselves lost, as
it were, in the wilderness of private and public relations
and interests.
If, for example, we start from the conception that " my
station and its duties " are the root of morality, the ques-
tion may immediately be hurled at us, " But what is my
station ? " Even the Church Catechism, on this point
usually misquoted, leaves our vocation to be determined
by the course of life : " To do my duty in that state of
life to which it shall please God to call me." In its full
extent this difficulty can only exist for those who do not
make their own living, or who, from exceptional ability or
versatility, have an unusually free hand in selecting their
vocation. Nor is it 7iecessarily a social abuse that the
majority have but a restricted choice of callings. As a
matter of principle, true freedom consists in making the
best of what we have — our parentage and our birthplace,
for example, involving our whole initial outfit, both physical
and moral, are unalterably given facts — rather than in an
indefinite range of possible selection. Provision for adapt-
ing vocation to capacity is of course desirable, but in the
end, whatever variety may be attainable, capacity must
after all in a great degree adapt itself to vocation. But
even those — the vast majority — whose lives are to a great
extent externally determined, remain responsible for the
spirit and temper of their work, and for the private duties on
the one hand, and the public or semi-pubHc on the other,
which lie round its margin. A workman of my acquaint-
ance, a painter by trade, has hardly an evening in the
week free from the claims of working-class clubs and
societies, in the management of which he, like so many of
his fellows, displays a wonderful administrative energy and
devotion. There is scope for choice in every life, and not
merely in the life of the leisure class ; but undoubtedly it
is to the latter, and especially to women who have no need
to support themselves, that the problem of selection pre-
sents itself like a pathless desert.
Now I am speaking not of the practical question of the
II THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP 17
most appropriate choice, but only of the moral question
raised by the idea of a conflict of duties, and the conse-
quent perturbing impression that whatever you do, some-
thing must be neglected, and therefore every course must
in some degree be wrong. And here I think that a simple
distinction may really give relief. We are to distinguish
between a true conflict of duties and a conflict of duty
and selfishness. In the former, which we profess to con-
stitute our difficulty, there is no cause for scruple or for
remorse, although there may be a just and natural regret
at our inability to undertake some branch of useful work.
For a conflict of duties presupposes that the conflicting
alternatives urge themselves as duties o?ily, and so long as
this is truly the case, our selfishness has no say in the
matter, and we have no cause for moral anxiety and per-
turbation. It is as though I were entrusted with a sum
of money with which to meet a variety of obligations, but
insufficient to defray them all. The weighing of obliga-
tions against each other in order to determine which ought
first to be discharged may be a nice and delicate task ;
but no ground arises for a case of conscience, unless I
have reason to suspect that, in the perplexity of the
situation, my own selfishness is taking occasion to influence
me. It is undoubtedly possible that a man setting out to
discharge two disagreeable duties may so deceive himself
as to the difficulty of combining them, or of selecting the
one in preference to the other, that he may return having
achieved neither. Then is the just occasion for genuine
remorse and the acutest self-contempt. But the moral
emergency as such is adequately dealt with if we honestly
bear in mind that only a duty can justify the avoidance of
a duty. Then, if we are sincere, we have drawn the sting
of self-accusation, and may confidently proceed to judge
and to act according to our lights. I am inclined to think
that for highly conscientious minds it is unwholesome to
dwell on the customary idea that there is always one right
course and one only. If we knew everything, this might
be so ; the one right course might then present itself as
the one course possible. But in human life it is untrue
c
i8 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM ii
that there is only one right course open to us ; it is truer
to think that every course is right which, presenting itself
as a genuine path of duty — though not the only one pos-
sible — is followed with the full force of our nature, and
with the determination to make it effective to the common
good. In preference to the maxim, "Search out the one
right course before you choose," I should suggest as a
deeper and a truer principle, " Begin anywhere, if you
know of no plainer duty unfulfilled ; but bear in mind that
the course which you adopt can only justify itself if pur-
sued as a duty ; seriously, devotedly, and with eagerness to
learn and criticise its bearing on the common good. The
unpardonable sin is not in choosing the wrong duty, but
in shirking all." Whatever clue you fasten upon will lead
you to the centre, if followed whole-heartedly and with an
open mind.
And now let us illustrate these principles from one or
two branches of work or modes of life which may be
interesting to the members of this settlement. In the first
place, speaking generally, all women of the leisure class
should especially study the probable effect of their working
for pocket-money wages on their poorer rivals in the labour
market. The question is a difficult one, but it seems
plainly a cruel thing for ladies whose livelihood is secure
to accept less than the market price for any kind of work
in which they really compete with those who have their
whole living to earn.
Passing from this general consideration, let us look at
one or two examples of the evils which may arise if we fail
to scrutinise our particular vocation with reference to the
welfare of society, to modify our isolated " world " by the
spirit of citizenship.
No one can value more than I do the work of those
women who, being trained nurses, devote themselves to
attendance on the jDoor at their own homes. Especially,
perhaps, the indirect results of their exertions are of per-
manent social value. They bring light into dark places ;
they^make known| sanitary defects and cause them to be
remedied ; they educate those on whom they attend in the
II THE DUTIES OF CITIZENSHIP 19
management of a sickroom, and in numberless details of
cleanliness and household economy.
But in one aspect of their vocation there is apt to
occur a certain collision of duties which has long become
a" matter of friendly discussion and adjustment between
some of their ablest workers and other persons engaged
in a more general endeavour to improve the condition of
the poor. A person who is ill needs food — often com-
paratively expensive food — and fire and houseroom, as
well as nursing and medicine. Now let us suppose that
a case on which a nurse is in attendance is one in which
the family has not resources even to provide adequately
for all its members, not to speak of diet for the sick. If
the nature of the illness, and the general circumstances of
the case, are such as to give reasonable hope that the
family may by attention and perseverance be restored in
the future to a self-supporting condition, then no objection
will probably be made by persons interested in sound
charitable work against finding some friends to provide
the nourishment required, and to do what is necessary for
the whole family with a view to ultimate re-establishment
on a self-supporting basis. But if all the circumstances
point in an opposite direction, if the condition of the
family appears hopeless, if character is bad, if the illness
has been caused or seriously aggravated by drink, if the
absence of work is not due to sickness, but the sickness is
a mere incident in a life of continued unemployment, so that
its cure is no remedy for the evil, then it will be held
advisable in the interest of society, and indeed of the family
itself, especially if it includes young children, that the case
should be dealt with by the Poor Law, the patient should
be received into the infirmary, and the children, instead
of dragging on in semi-starvation, should make a fresh
start in the Poor Law schools. But recourse to the Poor
Law is voluntary, and is shunned by the worse among the
poor because of the loss of freedom and submission to
rules which life in an institution demands, as by the more
independent, owing to the confession of failure implied in
an appeal for public relief. It is therefore {)robablc that
20 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM ii
for mixed reasons, by no means necessarily discreditable,
the sick person or the family will display the greatest
repugnance to appeal to the Poor Law, especially if out-
door relief is not likely to be granted, which would not be
done in the case described under any moderate relief
policy. The nurse is then, no doubt, in a dilemma. Her
duty, she will say — and who can deny it ? — is to bring the
patient through his sickness. Obviously it is idle for her
to give attendance and medicine to a sick person who has
insufficient nourishment, and perhaps inadequate house-
room, and a difficulty in providing fire. If, therefore, the
case is rejected by those with whom she commonly works
on the ground that no permanent good can be done to
the family, while by assisting it much harm will be caused
perhaps to the children themselves and certainly to the
?noraIe of the neighbourhood, then she is of course very
strongly tempted to assist the case out of her own re-
sources or by appealing to other private friends, whose aid
is given entirely because of her request. And, in fact, she
cannot possibly do otherwise unless she is prepared to
refuse further attendance, or unless an arrangement exists by
which she can attend as the agent of the Poor Law authori-
ties — a case which we are not at present discussing.
But now let us look at the matter from the point of
view of those who have banded themselves together to
improve the condition of the poor in a certain district by
a definite and intelligent policy in the administration of
charitable relief. Their aim and desire is to bring to bear
the resources of their neighbourhood effectively and
thoroughly where substantial good can be achieved by
strengthening and supporting those sufferers whom it
appears reasonably possible to restore to independent
life ; but, for a thousand reasons, to discountenance the
scattering of relief among hopeless cases in which no
permanent good can be done to the sufferer, for whom
institutional treatment is as a rule far more adequate,