THE EMOTION OF THE IDEAL 125 



be no longer an operative ideal, 1 or Bergson describ- 

 ing the characteristic force of the world as that 

 driving man to extract from himself more than there 

 is by actual creation, 1 or William James declaring 

 that it is absolutely hopeless to attempt to demon- 

 strate by purely intellectual processes the nature of 

 the inner life in us which is nevertheless creating 

 the world, 8 the reach and significance of the process 

 of change is apparent. 



The immature imaginings of the past about the 

 place of reason in the world will all in time be put 

 aside. Reason, whether it weighs the planets or 

 discusses the nature of the Absolute, is but the 

 mechanism of mind evolved in the past in corre- 

 spondence to those forces which produced the 

 individual integration. The individual of the past 

 has of necessity been the individual efficient in the 

 struggle for his own interests. But in the social in- 

 tegration which is proceeding, the eternal law of effi- 

 ciency cannot be stated in terms of reason. For it 

 can only be summarized in one word Sacrifice. 



In this stage the law of efficiency is always sacrifice 

 that sacrifice of the unit, the capacity for which 

 in man proceeds from the emotion of the ideal 



1 " Infallibility and Toleration," Hibbert Journal, 7. I. 



* Hibbert Journal, October 1911. 



3 The Varieties of Religious Experience. 



