OBLIGATION IN PARENTHOOD. 161 



millions who have for numberless generations toiled 

 in their own behalf and ours. Alone we might 

 obtain subsistence from roots and shell-fish, but as 

 citizens of an organised State we have food and 

 clothing for an easy expenditure of energy, and can 

 obtain for the trying much of that which may be 

 termed luxury, but which in reality is that which 

 makes life worth living. 



This debt that we owe to those who have gone 

 before us we can only repay to those who come after 

 us, and the sense of obligation will grow as we 

 become better educated in the broad facts of life and 

 history. We shall increasingly be prepared to forego 

 our pleasures, and to undertake that which may be 

 personally disagreeable for the sake of others. The 

 good of others has been, and will increasingly be, that 

 to which our energies will turn, and the most funda- 

 mental good that we can achieve is that which will 

 add to the organic excellence of the race. 



Can we doubt for a moment that men will hesitate 

 about fulfilling these obligations, or draw a line 

 beyond which in their disinterestedness they will not 

 eventually be prepared to go ? History shows that 

 mankind is ever ready to sacrifice itself if cause be 

 shown ; that men and women will go far beyond the 

 lengths of their devotion to self-interest, in their 

 devotion to a cause, a hero, a religion, an ideal. If 

 then it be shown that by sacrifice of the individual 



