ke of reality: a dislike of men as
they are. They are free to dislike them--but not at the same time to be
moralists. Their feeling leads them to ignore the obligation which
should rest on all teachers, "to discover the best that man can do, not
to set impossibilities before him and tell him that if he does not
perform them he is damned."

Man is moldable; very; and it is desirable that he should aspire. But
he is apt to be hasty about accepting any and all general ideals
without figuring out whether they are suitable for simian use.

One result of his habit of swallowing whole most of the ideals that
occur to him, is that he has swallowed a number that strongly conflict.
Any ideal whatever strains our digestions if it is hard to assimilate:
but when two at once act on us in different ways, it is unbearable. In
such a case, the poets will prefer the ideal that's idealest: the
hard-headed instinctively choose the one adapted to simians.

Whenever this is argued, extremists spring up on each side. One
extremist will say that being mere simians we cannot transcend much,
and will seem to think that having limitations we should preserve them
forever. The other will declare that we are not merely simians, never
were just plain animals; or, if we were, souls were somehow smuggled in
to us, since which time we have been different. We have all been
perfect at heart since that date, equipped with beautiful spirits,
which only a strange perverse obstinacy leads us to soil.

What this obstinacy is, is the problem that confronts theologians. They
won't think of it as simian-ness; they call it original sin. They
regard it as the voice of some devil, and say good men should not
listen to it. The scientists say it isn't a devil, it is part of our
nature, which should of course be civilized and guided, but should not
be stamped out. (It might mutilate us dangerously to become
under-simianized. Look at Mrs. Humphry Ward and George Washington.
Worthy souls, but no flavor.)

* * * * *

In every field of thought then, two schools appear, that are divided on
this: Must we forever be at heart high-grade simians? Or are we at
heart something else?

For example, in education, we have in the main two great systems. One
depends upon discipline. The other on exciting the interest. The
teacher who does not recognize or allow for our simian nature, keeps
little children at work for long periods at dul