The New Morality 



qualified assent ; the Christian religion as a real 

 inspiration of practical life and conduct is dead ; 

 the social conventions and Mrs. Grundy remain, 

 feebly galling and officious. What are we to 

 do ? Are we to bolster up the old codes, in 

 which we have largely ceased to believe, merely 

 in order to have a code ? — or are we to let 

 them go ? 



Of course, if we have decided what the final 

 purpose or life of Man is, then we may say that 

 what is good for that purpose is finally " good," 

 and what is bad for that purpose is finally " evil." 

 The Eastern philosophy, as I have said, deciding 

 that the final purpose of Man is identification with 

 Brahm, declares a// actions to be evil (even the 

 most saintly) which are done by the self as separate 

 from Brahm ; and all actions as good which are 

 done in the condition of vidya or conscious union. 

 But here, though a final good and evil are allowed 

 and acknowledged, as existing respectively in 

 the conditions of vidya or avidya, those condi- 

 tions altogether escape any external rule or classi- 

 fication. 



Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, taking up this subject 

 not long ago in a criticism ^ of Mr. Orage's little 

 book on Nietzsche, said that all this talk about 

 ** beyond good and evil " was nonsense ; that 

 we must have some code ; and that in effect, any 

 code, even a bad one, was better than none. And 

 one sees what he means. It is perfectly true, 

 in a sense, that the harness, the shafts, and the 

 ^ Dai/y News, December 29, 1906. 

 249 



