IT is the duty of every man to regulate his personal and family interests so as to admit of some exertions for the improvement of society. It is only by serving those beyond ourselves that we can secure for ourselves protection, sympathy, or honour. The neglect of home for public affairs endangers philanthropy, by making it the enemy of the household. To suffer, on the other hand, the interests of the family to degenerate into mere selfism, is a dangerous example to rulers.
II.
"No man or woman is accountable to others for any conduct by which others are not injured or damaged."*
* D. in the LEADER, 1850, who, as a correspondent, first
expressed this aphorism thus.
III.
Social freedom consists in being subject to just rule and to none other.
IV.
Service and endurance are the chief personal duties of man.
V.
Secularism holds it to be the duty of every man to reserve a portion of his means and energies for the public service, and so to cultivate and cherish his powers, mental and physical, as to have them ever ready to perform service, as efficient as possible, to the well-being of humanity. No weakness, no passion, no wavering, should be found among those who are battling for the cause of human welfare, which such errors may fatally injure. Self-control, self-culture, self-sacrifice, are all essential to those who would serve that cause, and would not bring discredit upon their comrades in that service.*
* Mr. L. H. Holdreth, Religion of Duty.
VI.
To promote in good faith and good temper the immediate and material welfare of humanity, in accordance with the laws of Nature, is the study and duty of a Secularist, and this is the unity of principle which prevails amid whatever diversity of opinion may subsist in a Secular Society, the bond of union being the common convictions of the duty of advancing the Secular good of this life, of the authority of natural morality, and of the utility of material effort in the work of human improvement. In other words, Secularist union implies the concerted action of all who believe it right to promote the Secular good of this life, to teach morality, founded upon the laws of Nature, and to seek human improvement by material methods, irrespective of any other opinions held, and irrespective of any diversity of reasons for holding these.