Free Activities 397 



trol and freedom is no longer an empty ideal, it is a rapidly 

 growing reality. When we consider the political and moral 

 liberty of the democratic and progressive nations, and their 

 freedom of conscience, and the respect for individuality; 

 and above all, when we observe the essentially altruistic 

 faith, by which the stupendous industrial and social work 

 of these nations is done; in the contest with the hostility, 

 not only of other men, but of nature; and the adversities of 

 climate and disease — it is clearly apparent that we are in 

 the process of an evolution of morality in a phase to be 

 called new. It is because of its freedom and general willing- 

 ness, that we fail to appreciate much of what is here called 

 altruistic faith. The daily life of the millions of laborers 

 and traders, and even of the so-called sordid workers, calls 

 for the exercise of altruism, and depends upon a high faith 

 reposed in others. The miner and the sailor go into positions 

 where a breach of trust by others, would expose them to 

 death, and those others of their class know it, and do as 

 they should. The engine driver running at headlong speed 

 in the darkness, trusts his life to those who guard the track 

 and signal his course; and more than that, the passengers, 

 who have no class affiliations with these guardians, and no 

 knowledge of them except the racial and social impersonal 

 knowledge ; show the same confidence which is almost never 

 disappointed. The traders deliver their possessions, and 

 take a word or a signature, in pledge of a faith which rarely 

 fails. All these things are done in liberty, and depend upon 

 free altruism, self -controlled by reason, and not by fear. 

 No great population can be organized in militant compul- 

 sion, and compelled to do these things. The operation in 



