114 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



mass of human clay and frailty ; the past and present 

 illustrious ones, and the beautiful characters that happily 

 all have met as well as their opposites. These raise 

 humanity in our eyes ; and to these must be added a 

 certain select company happily not a few, of whose 

 existence we are certainly assured, though we know them 

 not that noble band whose case touches our hearts, 

 whose praise has not been widely sounded either by others 

 or themselves, but -who nevertheless remain ever the salt 

 of the earth, upon whom the greater ones calculate ; that 

 noble company of unconscious heroes who do their duty 

 aye, and we are tempted to say more than their duty 

 without asking reward or taking any special credit to 

 themselves for so doing. Honour to these, to the many 

 unknown heroes, to the latent virtue of the world, to the 

 men who do their duty and speak not of it, almost know 

 not of it. If we too have spoken evil things of our species, 

 in the instances of these men and women, and in the 

 reverent and admiring recognition of their worth and 

 merit in the moral order of the world, we would make 

 reparation and acknowledgment of error to our kind. 

 For these are they who in every nation keep up the 

 standard of duty, who maintain the honour of humanity 

 unsullied, who preserve the distinction of virtue and vice 

 from being obscured or wholly obliterated. 



These last, our friends, the few great ones existing, 

 and the many great ones dead but whose work still lives, 

 are the real reconcilers of us to our species, the real 

 redeemers of mankind, the real representatives of what 

 is lovable in humanity. Through them only the " love 

 of humanity " becomes possible, and the phrase receives 

 whatever practical significance it has. 



9. Such then, finally, is human nature, and moral 

 systems must be founded on, as well as addressed to, 



