Buddha, Confucius, the Greek philosophers and many others, who lived before Jesus Christ, taught what could now be called, social ethics. Their freedom to express their thoughts and investigate new ideas was followed by a period of intellectual darkness known as the Dark Ages which spread over Europe. It began slowly about the fourth or fifth century A.D. and continued for over a thousand years before tapering off. All the Greek schools of philosophy were closed by the Roman emperor Justinian in 529 A.D. History records that the Dark Ages brought with it intense suffering, intolerance and cruelty. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of honourable people were burned alive at the stake, only because they disagreed with the doctrines of the Church. Religious wars became common.

At the Great Council on 27th Nov. I095, Pope Gregory announced his plan to raise an army to drive the Muslims out of Jerusalem. Thus began the Crusades to recapture the religious holy places and Jerusalem by the armies of the Crusaders The conflicts lasted about 200 years. The Crusaders swore allegiance to the Pope and took vows of chastity similar to priests. In the end, King Philip IV of France plotted to bring down the Templar Order so that he could get his greedy hands on the considerable wealth of the Crusaders. The Crusaders were falsely accused of heresy and very many of them were tortured and burned at the stake- A number of them had their feet burned off in an effort to make them confess to being guilty of heresy. Imagine the greed and hatred which could cause such extreme suffering. We were often told as children that Christianity offered forgiveness, love and peace. During the Dark Ages it was intolerance, cruel hatred and torture. The cruelty and injustice of the Dark Ages was extreme. Indeed, throughout history, religion has always brought division, intolerance, anti-social behaviour and numerous wars. The history of the Crusaders is recorded in an excellent book "Dungeon, Fire and Sword" by John J. Robinson (I994).

We see the same use of force today to compel others to conform to a particular creed or philosophy. My early religious education used the threat of eternal punishment as a method to gain my compliance. It is amazing how many religious groups still tend to return to the use of fear to keep their followers in line with their doctrine.

Finally, about the fifteenth or sixteenth century, there was a fresh, profound stirring and awakening to new thought, a sense of social justice and reality. It is known as the Reformation. At last, people could speak their thoughts without fear of being arrested and tortured. Reason and tolerance began to prevail over Church dogma. Demands for justice and liberty were being heard all over Europe.

The Pilgrim Fathers fled from the religious intolerance of Europe and arrived in their new country of America in 1720. They wrote new laws based on their own sense of justice. The First Amendment to the Constitution gave its people freedom of speech, assembly and freedom of religion. The French revolution followed in July I789. The people cried "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." Indeed it was a turbulent time of both oppression and liberty for hundreds of thousands of people not only in France but all over Europe.

In the same year of the French revolution, a book appeared by an Englishman, Jeremy Bentham, "The Principles of Morals and Legislation". For over a thousand years the Church had claimed to be the voice of God and the sole judge and authority of morals. Even Kings submitted to the claim that the Church was the Divine agent who alone could give or withhold God's blessing. Pope Gregory had believed that the Divine right of Kings flowed through the medium of the Pope who had power to bestow or remove that Divine Right. The Church ruled by fear. It had become extremely rich and powerful.

Bentham argued that morals were not a matter of pleasing God. His theory, which is called Utilitarianism, delivered a serious blow to the idea that morals were solely a part of religion. He defined Utility as "That property in any object whereby it tends to produce pleasure, good and happiness, or to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness." He maintained that the object of all legislation must be "the greatest happiness of the greatest number...An action is right if it achieves the greatest good for the greatest number of people."

The influence of "The Principles of Morals and Legislation" spread widely and quickly. Bentham was made a French citizen in I792. His advice was sought in Europe and America. He drafted a series of resolutions on Parliamentary reforms which was moved in the House of Commons in I8I8. The new philosophy had a good influence on thinking people. It also provided an alternative social standard of behaviour which is not attached to a religion or church Over the next hundred years or so, legislation freed slaves, opened education to women, gave them the vote and removed repressive powers over them, rescued children from labour in factories and coal mines, made education available to children at an early age and enacted many more good and just social and commercial laws.

"The Principles of Morals and Legislation" introduced new and liberating attitudes. Justice and morals began to be measured by human reason and fairness instead of Church doctrine. Virtue and reason arise from our innate social nature and have nothing to do with religion. We are born with all the tools necessary to provide us with happiness and the ability to have reciprocal exchange with others.

Our capacity to make friends starts with our social nature. We naturally have the ability to do this. It is the foundation on which social accord and happiness is built. There is very little chance of happiness or mutual benefit if we reject our social virtues. The fact is that the society is important to each one of us because we are all part of that community and necessarily contribute to, or detract from its harmony, thus benefiting or harming ourselves.

We are each provided with social virtues to help us benefit from society and at the same time, add value to our community. Virtuous acts are like tools which we can use. They were freely gifted to us at birth. They are part of the human heritage and do not have to be newly implanted. But they may be diminished through neglect, bad teaching, bad culture or example. They do need to be recognised and used otherwise discord will follow. Some people have a greater ability to use social tools than others. The skill can be expanded and their potential improved.

Some of those social tools are goodwill;

acceptance that other people may have a different yet valid point of view; a sense of fairness; understanding;

honesty; co-operation; communication; compassion;

trust; human warmth, tolerance and openness. Also the ability to listen and exercise tenderness toward others is most helpful- There are many more social tools you can add to your list. These tools enable us to get what we want from society while contributing our fair share.

All races develop customs and good manners which lubricate social accord within the community. Different societies have different ways of expressing those statements of respect for each other. All trades and professions have their own behavioural customs. There are standardised words of greeting and departure; words expressing thanks and words of respect. There are acts of etiquette and good manners which apply to all walks of life and races of mankind. These are part of the social human contract. They are words and acts of consideration and respect for fellow members of our society. There really is no need to be rude or insult our brothers and sisters of the human race. Good manners contribute to social accord. As has often been said, 'Manners maketh the man'. Good manners can be summed up as consideration of others.

Tell me honestly, would you like to be trusted; to be able to communicate and for your point of view be listened to? Would you like to feel human warmth and not to be deceived; to be understood and accepted as you are; and on occasions to feel tenderness? Of course we all would like that. It is easy to win friends when we give to others the respect and attention we would like them to give to us.

Years ago Dale Carnegie wrote a very popular book "How to Win Friends and Influence People." As I remember it, the title of one chapter was, 'Tfyou want to gather honey, don't kick the beehive over." If we set about hurting others, we are exposing ourselves to being hurt. That advice still stands. Angry bees will sting. Winning friends and happiness is a skill we all can improve on.

An attitude of goodwill is a powerful helper. Goodwill is free of anger and mistrust and is very slow to criticise. Goodwill has an expectation of friendship and success. Goodwill is totally good in itself and needs no qualification. In business, goodwill can be valued and sold for money. Business goodwill has to be won, it comes from repeated customer satisfaction and honest trading. If we set about it, we can fill our homes with goodwill between adults, between parents and children and between our society. There is almost no occasion when goodwill will not soften and calm a situation. An attitude of goodwill is one of the most effective tools we can use to gain social accord at home or in business. It tends to dissipate discord and bring happiness to both giver and receiver,

Just as a tree has a trunk with branches and smaller branches which carry leaves and fruit, likewise our innate social nature provides the structure and means, (toots) to nourish the end result of social accord. Thus, we can gain happiness and success as persons among other persons. You and I can become experts at building goodwill into our human contacts, If we do nothing else but succeed in this one thing, goodwill is bound to improve our lives and that of our friends.

Of course we are not perfect social beings all the time. There is a negative side to all of us. We can be disappointed, get hurt, feel resentment and become angry at the injustices we see and experience. Our emotions and perceptions of what is right or wrong, drive us in certain directions. As we keep using our social tools to avoid discord and hurts, the negative side will diminish.

Extreme and persistent negative behaviour can become an antisocial sickness which can lead to criminal behaviour. The cause usually goes back to an early home environment or is started as rebellion against repealed humiliation and injustice. Perceptions and attitudes are set early in life by example and training, They do have a powerful influence on later life. Children brought up in a violent home are more likely to become violent themselves. Our beliefs about our relationship to other members of society are important. If we regard the society as hostile or something to be exploited by any means, we are likely to become antisocial.

Our community has not yet fully rid itself of the intolerance of the Dark Ages, However, governments are slowly introducing laws to prevent discrimination against persons of differing races, sex or religion and other outlooks and habits. There is still a considerable way to go. We can only hope this trend will continue.

When we see ethnic cleansing forced on others by the use of guns. one begins to despair for such nations. There is very little difference between the times of the Inquisition when people were tortured and burned alive because they had different beliefs from the Catholic Church and the present day ethnic cleansing which occurred in Bosnia, Innocent people, including children, were suffering terribly for no other reason than that their outlook on life or religion is different.

We have the social tools to make our lives a happy adventure if we want to enough. But we still need to make a positive decision to pursue happiness for ourselves but not at the expense of others. We will reap what we sow, we will receive to the measure we give. The responsibility and the result is up to ourselves.