Life's Conditions 21 



truth of their teaching will be ultimately recognized and 

 so become the norm of general conduct. But this only 

 pushes the difficulty one step back. These leaders of 

 public opinion must get their ruling ideas of conduct 

 from some source. They will hardly take them from 

 the irresolute mob which is watching to follow their 

 lead. I believe that these ideas of conduct are devel- 

 oped out of the social conditions of life itself, both 

 among leaders and among the people ; conditions which, 

 so far as we can see, have been made obligatory, have 

 been laid down for the express purpose of developing 

 moral ideas in this world of ours. True, the leaders 

 of human thought will first recognize and formulate 

 these rules of conduct; but unless their teachings answer 

 to the people's social instincts (there have been many 

 false prophets in the world who have enjoyed a tem- 

 porary popularity), their truth will not be permanently 

 acknowledged. This is the biological explanation of 

 the phenomenon of moral ideas, and therefore it appears 

 to my mind the natural one. 



Life's Conditions 



A mother's loving self-sacrifice for her young, a 

 father's self-denial for the welfare of his family, a 

 clansman's supreme sacrifice for the good of his clan, 

 a patriotic soldier's voluntary relinquishment of life 

 in order that his nation may live, all seem to be suc- 

 cessive or concurrent steps in this evolution of moral 

 ideas. They are evolutionary ideals wrought out and 

 maintained by practical idealists, without which and 



