iterature be unconsciously moulded?
What account will be given of literature a thousand years from now, when a
later critic informs himself of our ethics in order to understand more
vitally the pages in which he has been brought up?

Partly to inform his Japanese students still further as to our ethical
tendencies in literature, and partly I think to indulge his own
speculation as to the morality that will be found in the literature of the
future, Hearn gave his remarkable lectures on the ant-world, following
Fabre and other European investigators, and his lecture on "The New
Ethics." When he spoke, over twenty years ago, the socialistic ideal had
not gripped us so effectually as it has done in the last decade, but he
had no difficulty in observing the tendency. Civilization in some later
cycle may wonder at our ambition to abandon individual liberty and
responsibility and to subside into the social instincts of the ant; and
even as it wonders, that far-off civilization may detect in itself
ant-like reactions which we cultivated for it. With this description of
the ant-world it is illuminating to read the two brilliant chapters on
English and French poems about insects. Against this whole background of
ethical theory, I have ventured to set Hearn's singularly objective
account of the Bible.

In the remaining four chapters Hearn speaks of the "Kalevala," of the
mediaeval romance "Amis and Amile," of William Cory's "Ionica," and of
Theocritus. These chapters deal obviously with literary influences which
have become part and parcel of English poetry, yet which remain exotic to
it, if we keep in mind the Northern stock which still gives character,
ethical and otherwise, to the English tradition. The "Kalevala," which
otherwise should seem nearest to the basic qualities of our poetry, is
almost unique, as Hearn points out, in the extent of its preoccupation
with enchantments and charms, with the magic of words. "Amis and Amile,"
which otherwise ought to seem more foreign to us, is strangely close in
its glorification of friendship; for chivalry left with us at least this
one great ethical feeling, that to keep faith in friendship is a holy
thing. No wonder Amicus and Amelius were popular saints. The story implies
also, as it falls here in the book, some illustration of those unconscious
or unconsidered ethical reactions which, as we saw in the chapter on the
"Havamal," have a lasting influence on our ideals and on our conduc