Variable Ideals 203 



man, indicating that humanity as a race was differentiated 

 from other animal Hfe, in a period long antecedent to the 

 appearance of the nearest present species of brutes. Just 

 as the relationship of man to the ape is utterly indirect, and 

 only through an ancestor very remote from both, so the 

 relationship between Aryan man and the unrecognized 

 savage is remote, in a common source of the distant past. 

 Even then the difference was probably first one of aptitude, 

 and not of condition or attainment. That aptitude which has 

 produced improvement continues; and will continue to pro- 

 duce it; and the lack of aptitude persists, and will persist, to 

 prevent progress. 



These surmises, although not in themselves conclusive, 

 are in harmony with observable facts. The great divisions 

 of mankind, racial, national, and political, show, as we have 

 noted, utterly different standards of conduct; and yet their 

 progressive evolution, when visible, indicates a common 

 law. They have systems of morality so much at variance, 

 that each one restricts the authority of that wisdom, to its 

 own sphere of action. The peoples which have attained 

 foremost rank and power in simultaneous development of 

 justice, and morality and social science, do not yet apply 

 these principles to the highest and largest units of conduct ; 

 but still engage in destructive armed combat to settle by 

 force the matters upon which nationally they become rivals, 

 and in doing so individuals of each race, or even of each 

 differing opinion of the same race, perpetrate, with con- 

 fidence of righteousness, deeds which they have stigmatized 

 as crimes when used between lesser units. 



Moreover the teachers, whose specialized duty it is to 



