Faith 261 



sympathetic intellect inspires confidence by its altruistic atti- 

 tude is immediate. This is however a manner of influence 

 of belief lacking in the stability which true full education 

 secures. It is a provisional adaptation for securing unity in 

 those conditions of inequality which it is the purpose of 

 altruism to remove. It is properly used, by the higher in- 

 telligence as a vehicle for education in that permanent 

 reasoned knowledge, for which it makes the mind ready; 

 and in which the pupil's conscience escapes control, and 

 becomes independent in its own wisdom, and then does in 

 knowledge the things first learned by faith. 



But faith has another form, lower than that sublime and 

 perfect trust, which is the bond by which communities be- 

 come possible and upon which all organization depends. 

 This is faith by the individual in the sense of duty of his 

 fellows, single in personal relations, and collective in the 

 aggregated activities. Faith of this order is the virtue 

 which makes industry and commerce constructive and cumu- 

 lative, instead of destructive and retrogressive. Good faith 

 adds to organized power, and bad faith lessens organized 

 power, and the organizing power, at the same time. Every 

 act of mutual trust in commerce or industry achieves not 

 only an intended gain, but is a new added strength to the 

 community in its development of power to act in unison in 

 future; and every act of deception is not only the injury 

 intended, but it is a detriment to the community ; which be- 

 comes less powerful and less efficient by the loss of harmony 

 and destruction of confidence. Faith is the complement of 

 altruism. Moral conduct must always be dependent upon 

 faith. 



