246 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 



heart of every ' civilised ' man and woman is an 

 unconverted core, large or small, of barbarism. 

 Humanity is only a habit. Against it, and tend- 

 ing ever to weaken and subvert it, are the power- 

 ful inertias of animalism. Like the ship in Ibsen's 

 ' Rhymed Epistle,' civilisation carries a corpse in 

 its cargo -the elemental appetites and passions 

 which have been implanted in all sentient nature 

 by the laws in accordance with which organic 

 forms have been fashioned. Moral progress is 

 simply the sloughing off of this inherited animality. 

 To the initiated, therefore, it is not strange 

 that we civilised folk in our conduct display so 

 freely the phenomena of the savage. There is 

 nothing more inevitable in the life of the convert 

 than the haunting inclination to give way to 

 original impulses. It is not strange that we are 

 powerless to be as good and beautiful and true as 

 we would like to be, that our divine efforts are our 

 half-hearted efforts, and that the only time we get 

 terribly in earnest and put forth really titanic 

 energies is when we are dominated directly or 

 indirectly by the instincts of the pack. Human 

 aspiration is fettered by the fearful facts of human 

 origin. It is not strange that we are continually 

 conscious of being torn by contending tendencies, 

 conscious of ghastly masteries, and of horrible 

 goings on in our innermost beings. The human 

 heart is the gladiatorial meeting-place of gods and 

 beasts. 



