1S8 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



Primitive society was thus tlie best possible school 

 of conscience ; and the family and it are the great 

 school of unselfishness. But society is even more and 

 better than this. It is the medium through which 

 thought, power, and moral and religious life can spring 

 from man to man. This is its last and culminating 

 advantage : it is that for which society really exists. 



For, in the close bonds of family and social life, a 

 new possibility of development has arisen based upon 

 articulate speech. We might almost call it a new 

 form of heredity, independent of all blood-relationship. 

 Progress in anatomical structure in the animal king- 

 dom was slow, because any improvement could be 

 transmitted only to the direct descendants of its 

 original possessor. But in all matters pertaining to 

 or based upon mind, a new invention, or idea, or 

 system becomes the property of him who can best ap- 

 preciate it. The torch is always handed on to the 

 swiftest runner. Thus Socrates is the true father of 

 Plato, and Plato of Aristotle. Whoever can best un- 

 derstand and appreciate and enter into the spirit of 

 Socrates and Plato becomes heir to their thoughts and 

 interprets them to us. And the thought of one man 

 enriches all races and times. 



But a great teacher like Socrates is not merely an 

 intellectual power. " Probe a little deeper, surgeon," 

 said the French soldier, " and you'll find the emperor." 

 Napoleon may have impressed himself on the soldier's 

 intellect ; he had enthroned himself in his heart. 

 " Slave," said the old Eoman, Harms, to the barbarian 

 who had been sent into the dungeon to despatch him, 

 " slave, wouldst thou kill Cains Marius ? ' And the 

 barbarian, though backed by all the power of Rome, 



