THE DEFENCE 221 



Moral distinctions are not matters of arithmetic it is 

 true ; and Idealism does not maintain that the difference 

 between right and wrong is a matter of quantity, or of the 

 "mere intelligence," if there be such an entity. But it 

 does maintain that it requires reason, conscience, will, moral 

 motives and a moral environment to seek satisfaction in 

 false ends as in true, to do what is wrong as well as what 

 is right. If that is not the case then wrong is not 

 immoral, nor is it sin, either as against the self, or mankind, 

 or God f It is only a natural mishap that has occurred to 

 an infra-moral, irresponsible and innocent being. But 

 ought it not to be plain that it is a condition of condemning 

 beliefs and institutions, as well as of improving or approv- 

 ing them, that their source should be spiritual ? Thus, 

 the conception of " spirit" cannot be let go in matters of 

 political and social life without mechanising that life. 

 Men and nations cannot possess the privileges of rational 

 spirit without its responsibilities, nor its potentialities 

 without its risks. And of all of these the weightiest, the 

 only ones which can have supreme importance according 

 to the idealist, are those which turn upon the relation and 

 the difference between right and wrong, the contrast 

 between which he is supposed to weaken ! 



A more valid charge against Idealism were just the 

 opposite. So far from interpreting political life in a new 

 and mischievous way, its view that " the course of history 

 and the growth of institutions is the revelation of a spiritual 

 principle" is just the old opinion that "right is might." 

 The critic can urge that the principle it has brought in with 

 such a blare of metaphysical wind is not only true but trite. 

 Carlyle, following the Hebrew prophets, thundered it in 

 our ears. It is a doctrine taught by all men who carry the 



