Social Environment 



indistinct, strange mixtures of the real and pos- 

 sible and the impossible, of the priceless and the 

 worthless, but of marvelous power and efficiency. 

 Says Stevenson of man : " Poor soul, here for so 

 little, cast among so many hardships, filled with 

 desires so incommensurate and so inconsistent, 

 savagely surrounded, savagely descended, irreme- 

 diably condemned to prey upon his fellow lives ; 

 who should have blamed him had he been of a 

 piece with his destiny? To touch the heart of 

 his mystery, we find in him one thought strange 

 to the point of lunacy; the thought of duty; the 

 thought of something owing to himself, to his 

 neighbor, to his God; an ideal of decency to 

 which he would rise, if it were possible; a limit 

 of shame, below which if it be possible, he will 

 not stoop. ^ 



We may clarify the vision, oftentimes we can 

 raise the ideal. But some ideal, and the highest 

 possible, must remain implanted in the mind. 

 " Where there Is no vision the people perish." 

 This vision and Ideal seems hardly other than 

 a composite of the inherited racial convictions 

 so omnipresent, so Imperious, which strengthen 



1 Cf. Stevenson, R. L., "Pulvis et umbra. 



