SIX MAJOR PROPHETS
I hope that Mr. Wells will work out in detail his theory of prevision as a motive for morality. We cannot have too many such motives, and it is quite possible that this factor has not been fully recognized in our ethical systems, though I have no doubt that, as is usually the case with discoveries, especially in ethics, the theory is not quite so novel as it seems to him. In the meantime, I would call his attention to two weak points in argument, as he has sketched it in this lecture. He gives as an example of the two ways of looking at a problem the old question of whether a bad promise is better broken or kept. The "legal mind" would regard the promise as inviolable; the "creative mind" would say that in view of future consequences it should be disregarded. But I would suggest that, if morality is, as he defines it, "an overriding of immediate and personal considerations out of regard to something to be attained in the future", the one who viewed the act most clearly in the light of the future would keep the promise even at the cost of some suffering to himself and others rather than bring the lack of confidence which results from a violated oath.
I would also point out that the followers of dogma are not to be classed so positively with those who
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