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9. Parenthood
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Ethics_V1_551-600.indd 25 1/16/12 9:25 AM CHAPTER 9 Parenthood 235. ,.,he subject matter of this chapter is of course only in ~part separable from the subject matter of the last chapter. But though in discussing the ethics of marriage, as primarily concerning the relations of parents to each other, it has been needful to take account of the relations of parents to offspring, it has seemed best to reserve the full consideration of these last relations for a distinct chapter. Already it has been pointed out that in the order of nature-"so careful of the type ... so careless of the single life"-the welfare of progeny takes precedence of the welfare of those who produce them. Though the happiness or misery of the married pair is ordinarily the result chiefly contemplated , this result must be held of secondary importance in comparison with the results reached in offspring-the superiority or inferiority of the children born and reared to maturity. For in proportion as race maintenance is well- or ill-achieved in each case, must be the tendency of the species or variety to prosper or decline. Hence all requirements touching the proximate end, marriage , are to be considered in subordination to requirements touching the ultimate end-the raising up members of a new generation. Evolutionary ethics demands that this last end shall be regarded as the supreme end. 575 Ethics_V1_551-600.indd 26 1/16/12 9:25 AM 576 The Ethics of Individual Life 236. Obviously the parental instincts in large measure secure fulfillment of this supreme end; since any species or variety in which they are not strong enough to do this, must presently become extinct. Here, then, we are introduced to the truth that achievement of those pleasures which parenthood brings, has a double sanction-that which the ethics of individual life directly yields, and that which is yielded indirectly by the ethics of social life. But satisfaction of the parental affections, while not to be ignored as an end in itself, is, as above implied, chiefly to be regarded as a spur to the discharge of parental responsibilities. The arrangements of things are dislocated if the two are not kept in relation-if the responsibilities, instead of being discharged by parents, are shouldered upon others. It might have been thought that this truth is too obvious to need enunciation; but, unhappily, it is far otherwise. We have fallen upon evil times, in which it has come to be an accepted doctrine that part of the responsibilities are to be discharged not by parents but by the public-a part which is gradually becoming a larger part and threatens to become the whole. Agitators and legislators have united in spreading a theory which, logically followed out, ends in the monstrous conclusion that it is for parents to beget children and for society to take care of them. The political ethics now in fashion, makes the unhesitating assumption that while each man, as parent, is not responsible for the mental culture of his own offspring, he is, as citizen, along with other citizens, responsible for the mental culture of all other men's offspring! And this absurd doctrine has now become so well established that people raise their eyebrows in astonishment if you deny it. A self-evident falsehood has been transformed into a self-evident truth! Along with the almost universal superstition that society is a manufacture and not a growth, there goes the unwavering belief that legislators, prompted by electors, can with advantage set aside one of the fundamental arrangements under which organic nature at large, and human nature in particular, has evolved thus far! Men who have proved cunning in busi- [34.228.188.171] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:34 GMT) Ethics_V1_551-600.indd 27 1/16/12 9:25 AM Parenthood 577 ness speculation, men who ride well to hounds and are popular in their counties, men who in courts of justice are skilled in making the worse cause appear the better, men who once wrote good Latin verses or proved themselves learned about the misbehavior of the Greek gods, unite in trying to undo organized dependencies resulting from millions of years of discipline. Men whose culture is so little relevant to the functions they have assumed, that they do not even see that everything in social life originates from certain traits of individual life, that individual human life is but a specialized part of life at...