280 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
desired to be perfect, 1 and the lawyer who could appreciate the summation of Mosaism in the double command to love God and man. 2 These men were no mere tricksters, but seekers after a more definite ethical standard. And doubtless it was in large measure for the same reason that the multitudes for a while hung upon his words. He would not be a judge and a divider in matters of property, 3 but he taught freely in regard to social duties, as he saw men needed his instruction. And it mattered nothing whether the want was in a hasty woman, 4 a timid son 5 or overzealous disciples. 6
Still, the questions return : the duty he set before men fur- nished the standard for life; did it also in any way furnish the motive for more rational social life ? Granting that men do want, or at least need a knowledge of God and a better ethical standard, how does Jesus proceed to turn the need into motive ? Was he, after all, but another in the list of noble men who have commanded men to love but who have not made love easy ?
If we revert once more to Christ's conception of man we see the basis of this double need. Man is a social being who finds his normal life only in union. It is the imperfect union that causes unrest. Jesus but deepened the need when he revealed the normal life of men ; a life which, as has already appeared, involves a twofold social relationship : a divine sonship and a human fraternity. These are the sources of the Christian motives that inevitably make toward the building up of both the individual and society.
III.
It is not necessary again to discuss what Jesus meant by the terms "father" and "son" as he used them to describe the rela- tions that may and should exist between man and God. 7 It will be enough to consider how the supreme relationship they express may furnish motives for social life.
Mark 10 : 17-31. * Luke 10 : 39 sq.
'Mark 12:28-34. $Matt. 18 :2i, 22.
3 Luke 12: 14. 'Mark 9:
7 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, I, 372-376.
