236 LIGHT SCIENCE FOR LEISURE HOURS. 



the other to his country or army, has not in that 

 served his country well ; but if that devotion, unrea- 

 sonable though it is in principle, is absolutely essential 

 to the efficiency of an army composed of not altogether 

 well-reasoning elements, then the man who has 

 ridiculed it, however reasonably, has done his country 

 or its army an ill-service. 



These cases are, of course, in themselves trivial 

 the reader will hardly need to be told that much more 

 important matters are illustrated by them. If a 

 citizen may be loyal to the community without any 

 trace of loyalty to person or family ; if a man may be a 

 good and faithful soldier without the feeling (or having 

 mastered as a weakness the feeling) of devotion to a 

 standard or an ensign, so may there be many who are 

 faithful to what they hold to be their duties without 

 any of those feelings commonly spoken of as religious 

 though erroneously, for the word ' religion ' applies 

 equally in reality to any influence or principle restrain- 

 ing men's actions. Men who have learned that certain 

 fears, hopes, and emotions are no more necessary to 

 virtuous conduct than devotion to a standard is neces- 

 sary to soldiers already devoted to a cause, must re- 

 member that this is not at present true of the social 

 organism to which they belong. It is not only their 

 duty, but the reverse of their duty, to ridicule feelings 

 or beliefs essential to the well-being of the body social 

 as it at present exists. The code we set up must be 

 such as is good for the community, not that which is 

 sufficient for ourselves. As our author well remarks, 



