d of late it has become
again the general practice among prudent governments to do as the Romans
did in their conquests, and to leave people free to exercise what
religion they have, without pestering them with a foreign one. On the
other hand the same politicians are the avowed agents of a quite patent
iniquity; for what is their ideal? To substitute their own language,
commerce, soldiers, and tax-gatherers for the tax-gatherers, soldiers,
commerce, and language of their neighbours; and no means is thought
illegitimate, be it fraud in policy or bloodshed in war, to secure this
absolutely nugatory end. Is not one country as much a country as
another? Is it not as dear to its inhabitants? What then is gained by
oppressing its genius or by seeking to destroy it altogether?

Here are two flagrant instances where prerational morality defeats the
ends of morality. Viewed from within, each religious or national
fanaticism stands for a good; but in its outward operation it produces
and becomes an evil. It is possible, no doubt, that its agents are
really so far apart in nature and ideals that, like men and mosquitoes,
they can stand in physical relations only, and if they meet can meet
only to poison or to crush one another. More probably, however, humanity
in them is no merely nominal essence; it is definable ideally, as
essences are defined, by a partially identical function and intent. In
that case, by studying their own nature, they could rise above their
mutual opposition, and feel that in their fanaticism they were taking
too contracted a view of their own souls and were hardly doing justice
to themselves when they did such great injustice to others.

[Sidenote: The Greek ideal.]

How prerational morality may approach the goal, and miss it, is well
illustrated in the history of Hellenism. Greek morals may be said to
have been inspired by two prerational sentiments, a naturalistic
religion and a local patriotism. Could Plato have succeeded in making
that religion moral, or Alexander in universalising that patriotism,
perhaps Greece might have been saved and we might all be now at a very
different level of civilisation. Both Plato and Alexander failed, in
spite of the immense and lasting influence of their work; for in both
cases the after-effects were spurious, and the new spirit was smothered
in the dull substances it strove to vivify.

Greek myth was an exuberant assertion of the rights of life in the
universe. Exis