106 HEREDITY AND SOCIETY 



enable him with the least harm, or with the greatest 

 good, to effect the sacrifice and to lead the life which 

 his religious instincts have prompted him to undertake 

 as a necessary act in his recognition of the divine 

 element vitalizing the Universe. Whether this sub- 

 ordination of self to the wider interests of society be 

 the result of terrorized obedience to the laws and 

 customs of a primitive community, or of acquiescence 

 in the social conditions by which free play is given to 

 various forms of natural selection in this world, and 

 for the rigours of which rewards and penalties are 

 allotted in the next, or a reasoned acceptance of irksome 

 restrictions on account of their racial value, some form 

 of religion, some method of education, are essential to 

 obtain the ultimate intelligent triumph of the altruistic 

 principle. 



Now there are two classes of persons who seem 

 fitted by natural circumstances to give education in the 

 sense in which we have defined it. In the first place 

 there are those whose experience of life has been of the 

 simpler, more primitive type, and who, having accepted 

 many things originally on authority, have seen no 

 reason, as life has lengthened and experience has 

 ripened, to question the accuracy of the empirical 

 knowledge they received. It is to such people that 

 we must go to find the accumulation of traditional 

 wisdom, the strength of intuitive morality in their 

 simplest and most impressive form. This class of 

 mind is unfortunately not on the increase among us. 

 Its destruction without any effort at a compensating 

 replacement is probably largely due to the errors in 

 training of the last forty years. Nevertheless, accept- 



