THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON. CHICAGO DALLAS MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO PRINCIPLES AND PROGRAMS BY HARRY F. WARD PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS IN UNION THEOLOGICAL New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1920 "All rights reserved PREFACE The background of this discussion is the conviction, which has been maturing through the years, that a new order of social living is necessary for both the practical and the spiritual interests of humanity. The events of the last few years have intensified that conviction and have added to it the judgment that the beginnings of a new order are already with us, that here and there parts of it may be seen breaking through the shell of the old, which has long been nourishing the embryo. This does not mean that state socialism is going to be universally adopted or that the world is going Bolshevik. Still less does it mean that the organization of a League of Nations will inaugurate the millenium. The signs are clear, however, that we have arrived at one of those conjunctions of economic pressure and idealistic impulse, which occasion fundamental changes in the organization of life. It was so when slavery was abandoned as the economic base of civilization and again when monarchy was rejected as a mode of government. Now, the economic order which superseded production by slavery and came to its fruition with the mass production of the machine era is beginning to give way to some other form. This transformation necessarily involves changes in the form of government that superseded monarchy, also far-reaching alteration and developments in the entire social structure, in the habits and customs of society and in its vital forces. This is more generally understood in Europe than in the United States, where the present economic order is younger and more vigorous on account of its later development and the extent and richness of the natural resources that nourish it. Here too there prevails a simple |