80 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



an inexplicable spirit appeared to me now to surge 

 through the essays. Despite the immaculate 

 maxims it seemed the voice of Nietzsche's superman. 

 The Ethic of Free Thought presented itself to me, 

 as the ethic of Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege was 

 afterwards to present itself to Professor Morgan. 

 It laid down unimpeachable rules which repre- 

 sented the ethic of civilization, and then it destroyed 

 them by a spirit and exceptions which represented 

 the ethic of the jungle. 



For what did the sum of all the essays in the book 

 amount to ? It was expressed perhaps in the 

 clearest terms in the essay entitled the " Moral 

 Basis of Socialism." Professor Pearson urged 

 the claims of his socialist ideal with the fervour of 

 a religious enthusiast. And this was what he con- 

 ceived the ideal to be. The primary educative 

 mission of modern socialism was, he said, to preach 

 afresh the old conception of the State as it pre- 

 vailed in ancient Greece. The mind staggered 

 before the atavism of the conception. For has not 

 the whole meaning of the integration which the 

 struggle in Western history has represented for 

 thousands of years consisted in projecting the sense 

 of human responsibility outside the State as it 

 existed in the world of ancient Greece ? All the 

 intervening struggle of the ages for the liberty and 



