e "higher-than-self" principle which is involved in the
moral sense itself. And this higher-than-self is not just a collective
naturalism, a social consciousness, as Durkheim and Overstreet and
Miss Harrison would say. The simplest introspective act will prove
that. For a man cannot ignore self-condemnation as if it were only a
natural difficulty, nor disparage it as though it were merely humanly
imposed. We think it comes from that which is above and without,
because it speaks to the solitary and the unique, not the social
and the common part of us. Hence conscience is not chiefly a tribal
product, for it is what separates us from the group and in our
isolation unites us with something other than the group. "Against
Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." So
religious preaching perpetually holds us up above our natural selves
and the natural order.

Thus man must live by an other-than-natural law if he is to preserve
the family, which is the social unit of civilization. Its very
existence depends upon modifying and transforming natural hunger by a
diviner instinct, by making voluntary repressions, willing sacrifices
of the lower to the higher, the subordinating of the law of self and
might to the law of sacrifice and love--this is what preserves family
life. Animals indeed rear and cherish their young and for the mating
season remain true to one another, but no animality _per se_ ever yet
built a home. There must be a more-than-natural law in the state. Our
national life and honor rest upon the stability of the democracy and
we can only maintain that by walking a very straight and narrow path.
For the peace of freedom as distinguished from precarious license is
a more-than-natural attainment, born of self-repression and social
discipline, the voluntary relinquishment of lesser rights for higher
rights, of personal privileges for the sake of the common good.
Government by the broad and easy path, following the lines of least
resistance, like the natural order, saying might is right, means
either tyranny or anarchy. _Circumspice_! One of the glories of
western civilization is its hospitals. They stand for the supernatural
doctrine of the survival of the unfit, the conviction of the community
that, to take the easy path of casting out the aged and infirm,
the sick and the suffering, would mean incalculable degeneration
of national character, and that the difficult and costly path of
protection an