The Seven Social Sins

The price of civilization is not paid in currency but in conscience.

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things by Hieronymus Bosch, 1505 (public domain — Wikipedia)

“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty, and death of public opinion.”
— Samuel Butler, c. 1902

On October 22, 1925 — exactly one hundred years ago today — Mohandas Gandhi published Frederick Lewis Donaldson’s Seven Social Sins in his weekly newspaper Young India.¹

In an address earlier that year as Canon of Westminster Abbey, Donaldson laid out a list of what he called seven “social evils” (sometimes referred to as the Seven Blunders of the World) in a fairly straightforward fashion:

1. Wealth without work.

2. Pleasure without conscience.

3. Knowledge without character.

4. Commerce without morality.

5. Science without humanity.

6. Religion without sacrifice.

7. Politics without principle.

[See below for a graphic version of the list.]