THE PAGAN ETHIC 98 



which was gradually raising the mind of the West 

 to the plane of the universal, and which lay behind 

 all the influence of the liberating ideals of Western 

 civilization upon humanity. 



The mind struggles for a time with the train of 

 ideas which are suggested. But in this case also 

 it is the picture of the childhood of the world which 

 at last holds it against other conceptions. On 

 reading through these lectures of Mr. Bateson it is 

 almost as if we saw in imagination the primitive 

 man of past aeons of time presenting himself before 

 a congress of civilization, holding again a dripping 

 head in one hand and an ensanguined spear in the 

 other, and, entirely unconscious of the meaning of 

 all the vast struggles for human liberties, demanding 

 in the name of science the restitution of that primal 

 law of the jungle by which the fittest to secure 

 property in the fight survived and transmitted his 

 qualities, all subsequent social conditions being 

 denounced as " founded in natural falsehood." 



Mr. Bateson was President of the British Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science at its session 

 for the year 1914 held in Australia. It was a 

 fitting climax which awaited this surprising phase 

 in the history of the Western mind. When Mr. 

 Bateson and the British Association left England 

 in the summer of 1914 the world was in a state of 



