THE FAMILY INSTINCTS 205 



and restrains liim from carrying out his caprice. In 

 accordance with this principle, the rights of a father 

 or mother, sacred in the eyes of the ancients, have 

 been seriously encroached upon by the State, which 

 requires that a parent shall train his children in con- 

 formity not with his own ideas, but with those of the 

 community ; and, as in the case of marriage customs, 

 the modifications of sentiment involved tend to 

 become acceptable. When a new law is passed, 

 like that of compulsory vaccination, it may for a 

 time be felt as a hardship by individuals, but in the 

 end the people adapt themselves to their new con- 

 ditions, and men accept as natural and proper what 

 their fathers may have regarded as an exercise of 

 tjn-anny. 



We have more than once turned to the drama as 

 an index of the sentiment of a particular period. 

 Historians, who concern themselves more with names 

 and dates than with the spirit of the age they deal 

 with, leave us no other resource. Perhaps no better 

 guide to the truth could be desired. There are always 

 two kinds of sentiment reflected in the drama and 

 the literature generally of a people ; there are those 

 that a man finds in his heart and those that he finds 

 in his imagination. The latter serve to explain and 



