THE EMOTION OF THE IDEAL 187 



resting on self-assertion and the cause of efficiency 

 in the social integration resting on selflessness, the 

 fundamental importance of the emotion of the ideal 

 as a cause of human progress becomes steadily 

 visible. 



It is the principles of the child mind in their 

 relation to the capacity for sacrifice in the individual 

 which underlie the ascending curve of efficiency in 

 every social institution of the race. It is the mind 

 of the child, before the child passes under the 

 influence of that inborn heredity of the individual, 

 efficient in the struggle for the possession of property, 

 as described with such extraordinary illumination 

 by Bateson, which constitutes the basal fact upon 

 which the social integration is being reared. 



Every organized force in civilization, from that 

 of political parties and of the national life of peoples 

 down to those represented by the vast hidden under- 

 world of finance which wraps and enfolds all things, 

 is grasping this fact by the fundamental instinct of 

 its life that the emotion of the ideal has become 

 the first cause in the world to be reckoned with under 

 modern conditions. 



It was the emotion of the ideal, similarly applied 

 through the collective inheritance imposed by the 

 nation on the rising generation, and applied so as 

 to bring into existence the strong sense of duty and 



