Defence of Criminals 



mined self-control into ascendancy over the 

 passions ; it involves the complete mastery, one 

 by one, of them all, and the recognition and allow- 

 ance of them only because they are mastered. 

 And it is just this training and subjection of the 

 passions as of winged horses which are to draw 

 the human chariot which necessarily forms such 

 a long and painful process of human evolution. 

 The old moral codes are a part of this process ; 

 but they go on the plan of extinguishing some of 

 the passions seeing that it is sometimes easier 

 to shoot a restive horse than to ride him. We 

 however do not want to be lords of dead carrion, 

 but of living powers ; and every steed that we can 

 add to our chariot makes our progress through 

 creation so much the more splendid, providing 

 Phoebus indeed hold the reins, and not the incap- 

 able Phaeton. 



And by becoming thus one with the social self, 

 the individual, instead of being crushed, is made 

 far vaster, far grander than before. The re- 

 nunciation (if it must be so called) which he has 

 to accept in abandoning merely individual ends 

 is immediately compensated by the far more 

 vivid life he now enters into. For every force 

 of his nature can now be utilised. Planting him- 

 self out by contrast he stands all the firmer because 

 he has a left foot as well as a right, and when he 

 acts, he acts not half-heartedly as one afraid, but, 

 as it were, with the whole weight of Humanity 

 behind him. In abandoning his exclusive in- 

 dividuality he becomes for the first time a real 



177 M 



