130 PERSONALITY 



work. But it was the God of materialism, 

 and not of Christianity, that was dying. 



Another picture that is often presented to 

 us nowadays is the ideal of men as perfect 

 organisms. All our ills seem, it is argued, 

 ultimately to arise from organic imperfections ; 

 and if we could only eliminate these by im 

 proving our material conditions, or by eugenic 

 control of the population, all would be well 

 with us. Care of the body thus appears 

 as the all-important question. If we were 

 nothing but unconscious organisms blindly 

 struggling for existence, this mode of regard 

 ing humanity would doubtless be a correct 

 one. It would have mattered more to our 

 race that Shakespeare or Newton should have 

 begotten children than that they should have 

 done the work by which they are known. 

 But we are not mere organisms : nor does 

 our life-work die with us. Nor is it true that 

 organic perfection, so far as we can ordinarily 

 judge of it, is necessarily any true test of 

 human fitness. It has been my lot to see 

 many men and women who have distinguished 

 themselves by showing the greatest of moral 

 or intellectual qualities, and they present 



