146 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



is the best policy just as peace is urged as the best 

 policy is regarded as a quite obvious and sufficient 

 reason for pursuing it. 



Yet how utterly wide of the truth such an answer 

 would be. The ordinary law-abiding citizen does 

 not break the law and does not become a swindler 

 or a highwayman. But not for any cause which 

 rests on any reasoning of this kind. He does not 

 break the law simply because it is impossible for 

 him to do so. It would be impossible for him to 

 do so if there were no self-interest of this nature to 

 warn him, and no irresistible force to overtake him, 

 and no organized system of society to punish him. 

 He cannot break the law, not because he fears 

 civil punishment, but because he knows beyond doubt 

 that however successfully he might hope to attempt 

 it, however great the gain which he might expect 

 to secure from it it would be of no use to him. 

 For he would have lost by the act all that makes 

 life worth living in losing the internal standard ot 

 himself which he carries in his mind. 



At some stage of his career, in short, the average 

 individual of civilization whom we meet on every 

 side of us has passed permanently under the in- 

 fluence of the emotion of the ideal. It was conveyed 

 to him by teaching or example through the cultural 

 inheritance. And he has, thereby, passed irre- 



