COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



zens and existing citizens. The ideas current 

 in this social state must on the average be con- 

 gruous with the feeUngs of citizens ; and there- 

 fore, on the average, with the social state these 

 feelings have produced. Ideas wholly foreign 

 to this social state cannot be evolved, and, if 

 introduced from without, cannot get accepted 

 — or, if accepted, die out when the temporary 

 phase of feeling which caused their acceptance 

 ends." This statement, I may observe in pass- 

 ing, is well illustrated by the abortive attempts 

 of missionaries to civilize the lower races of 

 mankind by converting them to Christianity. 

 Though they sometimes succeed in procuring 

 temporary verbal acceptance for Christian ideas, 

 they almost always fail in effecting a genesis of 

 Christian feeling, and such civilization as they 

 are able to produce is apt to be both superficial 

 and transient. This is simply because civiliza- 

 tion is not a mere process of external acquire- 

 ment, but is a process of slow adaptation or 

 breeding, which requires many generations to 

 effect a permanent modification of character. 

 The Fiji, whose language contains no words 

 expressive of the higher emotions or the more 

 exalted principles of action, cannot be made 

 into a Christian. You may cover him with a 

 very little of the external varnish of civilization ; 

 you may astonish him into accepting a few for- 

 mulas, to him quite unintelligible, concerning 



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