128 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



higher movements in art, in religion, and in all great 

 literatures. 



The effect of the conceptions of mind conveyed 

 to the young by training and example under the 

 influence of the emotion of the ideal is absolutely 

 ineradicable. It gives a permanent direction to 

 character which can never be altered. It creates 

 in the individual a capacity for sacrifice in the 

 service of those ideals which rises above self-interest 

 and which is entirely independent of the reasoning 

 faculty of the human mind. In recent times the 

 control of this limitless power through the direction 

 of the emotion of the ideal in the young has been 

 seen directed in its most characteristic forms to 

 national ends. It has given in this connexion the 

 astonishing examples of sacrifice which have been 

 witnessed in the great world war that began hi 1914. 



Throughout this war the capacity for sacrifice in 

 men has been exhibited on an unparalleled scale under 

 the sternest conditions. It has been seen continu- 

 ously enabling great aggregates of men, amounting 

 in total to millions, to meet resolutely almost certain 

 death in massed formation in the service of Germany. 

 It produced the same examples of sacrifice on a 

 stupendous scale in the case of other countries 

 engaged in the war. It gave civilization the example 

 of millions of men enrolled by Great Britain and her 



