190 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



spired Corjbant. My inmost soul is stung by his 

 words as by the bite of a serpent. It is indignant at 

 its own rude and ignoble character. I often weep 

 tears of regret and think how vain and inglorious is 

 the life I lead. Nor am I the only one that weeps 

 like a child and despairs of himself. Many others are 

 affected in the same way." 



These men are the real kings. Their power for 

 good, and sometimes for evil, is inestimable. And the 

 great advantage of social life, as a means of conform- 

 ing to environment, is the medium which it furnishes 

 to conduct the power of such men. Man's last effort 

 toward conformity to environment, the struggle for 

 existence in its last most real form, is the life and 

 death grapple between good and evil. For here good 

 and evil, righteousness and sin, come face to face in 

 spiritual form ; "we wrestle not with flesh and blood." 

 Life is more than a game of chess or whist ; it is a 

 great battle ; every man must, and does, take sides ; he 

 must fight or die. And the real kings of society are, 

 as a rule, on the side of truth, and aid its triumph. 

 For one essential condition of such leadership is the 

 power to inspire confidence in the love of the king for 

 his willing subject. A suspicion of selfish aims in the 

 leader breaks this bond. The hero must be self- 

 forgetful. This is one reason for man's hero-worship, 

 and the magnetic, dominant power of the hero. But 

 evil is essentially selfish and can gain and hold this 

 kingship only as long as it can deceive. And these 

 kings "live forever." Dynasties and empires dis- 

 appear, but Socrates and Plato, Luther and Huss, 

 Cromwell and Lincoln, rule an ever-widening kingdom 

 of ever more loyal subjects. 



