A Preface to Morals

A Preface to Morals is by Walter Lippmann. A chapter headed “Lost Provinces”, in a section on business, says that in the last six hundred years the churches have fought a losing battle against the emancipation of business from religious control. The text says that in 787 the Second Council of Nicæa laid down the rule which for nearly five hundred years was binding upon the artists of Christendom, that the substance of religious scenes is not left to the initiative of the artists.

The text says the artist of the last two or three generations has confronted the world without any accepted understanding of human life and has had to improvise his own. The text asks how many of us really know what we are talking about when we use words like the state, sovereignty, independence, democracy, representative government, national honor, liberty, and loyalty. The text says such terms have ceased to be intellectual instruments for apprehending the facts we have to deal with and have become push buttons which touch off emotional reflexes.