THE EMOTION OF THE IDEAL 129 



peoples by voluntary enlistment going to meet death 

 in the service of their cause with a cheerful and con- 

 sidered judgment on a scale which under such con- 

 ditions is without any precedent in history. But in 

 all these cases it would be found on inquiry that 

 the strength of the devotion compelling to sacrifice 

 for the ideals of nationality owed nothing to the 

 inborn heredity of the individual, but had its spring 

 and origin in the first instance in the collective 

 heredity imposed on the rising generation under 

 the influence of the emotion of the ideal powerfully 

 awakened by teaching and example at some stage 

 in the mind of childhood. 



An indirect influence of the capacity for 

 sacrifice thus created is to be witnessed far 

 beyond that stage described by Bateson in which 

 the altruistic emotions tend to weaken and dis- 

 appear. A powerful effect is to be seen in its 

 influence on general opinion. For however selfish 

 the general outlook may become, men still, as 

 William James has asserted, " tolerate no one who 

 has no capacity whatever for heroic sacrifice. ... No 

 matter what a man's frailties otherwise may be, if 

 he is willing to risk death in the service he has 

 chosen, the fact consecrates him for ever." l 



It lias been already said that the work done by 



1 The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture xiv. p. 364. 



