discovered by investigators; the _vivida vis animi_ taking the place of
much recorded experience, because much unrecorded experience has
secretly fed it. Such, for instance, is the central maxim of
Christianity, Love thy neighbour as thyself. On the other hand, what is
usual in intuitive codes is a mixture of some elementary precepts,
necessary to any society, with others representing local traditions or
ancient rites: so Thou shalt not kill, and Thou shalt keep holy the
Sabbath day, figure side by side in the Decalogue. When Antigone, in
her sublimest exaltation, defies human enactments and appeals to
laws which are not of to-day nor yesterday, no man knowing whence
they have arisen, she mixes various types of obligation in a most
instructive fashion; for a superstitious horror at leaving a body
unburied--something decidedly of yesterday--gives poignancy in her mind
to natural affection for a brother--something indeed universal, yet
having a well-known origin. The passionate assertion of right is here,
in consequence, more dramatic than spiritual; and even its dramatic
force has suffered somewhat by the change in ruling ideals.

[Sidenote: Conflict of partial moralities.]

The disarray of intuitive ethics is made painfully clear in the
conflicts which it involves when it has fostered two incompatible
growths in two centres which lie near enough to each other to come into
physical collision. Such ethics has nothing to offer in the presence of
discord except an appeal to force and to ultimate physical sanctions. It
can instigate, but cannot resolve, the battle of nations and the battle
of religions. Precisely the same zeal, the same patriotism, the same
readiness for martyrdom fires adherents to rival societies, and fires
them especially in view of the fact that the adversary is no less
uncompromising and fierce. It might seem idle, if not cruel and
malicious, to wish to substitute one historical allegiance for another,
when both are equally arbitrary, and the existing one is the more
congenial to those born under it; but to feel this aggression to be
criminal demands some degree of imagination and justice, and sectaries
would not be sectaries if they possessed it.

Truly religious minds, while eager perhaps to extirpate every religion
but their own, often rise above national jealousies; for spirituality is
universal, whatever churches may be. Similarly politicians often
understand very well the religious situation; an