en are supposed by
him to form; human beings return to the level of the animals, neither
exalting to heaven, nor yet abusing the natural instincts. All that
world of poetry and fancy which the passion of love has called forth
in modern literature and romance would have been banished by Plato. The
arrangements of marriage in the Republic are directed to one object--the
improvement of the race. In successive generations a great development
both of bodily and mental qualities might be possible. The analogy of
animals tends to show that mankind can within certain limits receive a
change of nature. And as in animals we should commonly choose the best
for breeding, and destroy the others, so there must be a selection made
of the human beings whose lives are worthy to be preserved.

We start back horrified from this Platonic ideal, in the belief, first,
that the higher feelings of humanity are far too strong to be crushed
out; secondly, that if the plan could be carried into execution we
should be poorly recompensed by improvements in the breed for the loss
of the best things in life. The greatest regard for the weakest and
meanest of human beings--the infant, the criminal, the insane, the
idiot, truly seems to us one of the noblest results of Christianity. We
have learned, though as yet imperfectly, that the individual man has an
endless value in the sight of God, and that we honour Him when we honour
the darkened and disfigured image of Him (Laws). This is the lesson
which Christ taught in a parable when He said, 'Their angels do always
behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.' Such lessons are only
partially realized in any age; they were foreign to the age of Plato, as
they have very different degrees of strength in different countries or
ages of the Christian world. To the Greek the family was a religious and
customary institution binding the members together by a tie inferior
in strength to that of friendship, and having a less solemn and sacred
sound than that of country. The relationship which existed on the lower
level of custom, Plato imagined that he was raising to the higher level
of nature and reason; while from the modern and Christian point of view
we regard him as sanctioning murder and destroying the first principles
of morality.

The great error in these and similar speculations is that the difference
between man and the animals is forgotten in them. The human being
is regarded with the eye of a dog-