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 all 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 J 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 



1 Daily News, December 29, 1906. 

 249 



