ould require a high intelligence, and, what is
rarer still, noble affinities and renunciations which are not to be
looked for in an undisciplined people. But to feel the truth and
authority of an abstract maxim (as, for instance, Do right and shame the
devil), a maxim applicable to experience on any plane, nothing is needed
but a sound wit and common honesty. Men know better what is right and
wrong than what is ultimately good or evil; their conscience is more
vividly present to them than the fruits which obedience to conscience
might bear; so that the logical relation of means to ends, of methods to
activities, eludes them altogether. What is a necessary connection
between the given end, happiness, and the normal life naturally
possessing it, appears to them as a miraculous connection between
obedience to God's commands and enjoyment of his favour. The evidence of
this miracle astonishes them and fills them with zeal. They are
strengthened to persevere in righteousness under any stress of
misfortune, in the assurance that they are being put to a temporary test
and that the reward promised to virtue will eventually be theirs.

[Sidenote: The development of conscience.]

Thus a habit of faithfulness, a trust in general principles, is fostered
and ingrained in generation after generation--a rare and precious
heritage for a race so imperfectly rational as the human. Reason would
of course justify the same constancy in well-doing, since a course of
conduct would not be right, but wrong, if its ultimate issue were human
misery. But as the happiness secured by virtue may be remote and may
demand more virtue to make it appreciable, the mere rationality of a
habit gives it no currency in the world and but little moral glow in the
conscience. We should not, therefore, be too much offended at the
illusions which play a part in moral integration. Imagination is often
more efficacious in reaching the gist and meaning of experience than
intelligence can be, just because imagination is less scrupulous and
more instinctive. Even physical discoveries, when they come, are the
fruit of divination, and Columbus had to believe he might sail westward
to India before he could actually hit upon America. Reason cannot create
itself, and nature, in producing reason, has to feel her way
experimentally. Habits and chance systems of education have to arise
first and exercise upon individuals an irrational suasion favourable to
rational ends. Men