do not deserve to be taken
too seriously; the fact that we must take them seriously being the
ignoble part of our condition.

Of course such renunciations, to be rational, must not extend to the
whole material basis of life, since some physical particularity and
efficiency are requisite for bringing into being that very rationality
which is to turn enemies into friends. The need of a material basis for
spirit is what renders partial war with parts of the world the
inevitable background of charity and justice. The frontiers at which
this warfare is waged may, however, be pushed back indefinitely. Within
the sphere organised about a firm and generous life a Roman peace can be
established. It is not what is assimilated that saps a creative will,
but what remains outside that ultimately invades and disrupts it. In
exact proportion to its vigour, it wins over former enemies, civilises
the barbarian, and even tames the viper, when the eye is masterful and
sympathetic enough to dispel hatred and fear. The more rational an
institution is the less it suffers by making concessions to others; for
these concessions, being just, propagate its essence. The ideal
commonwealth can extend to the limit at which such concessions cease to
be just and are thereby detrimental. Beyond or below that limit strife
must continue for physical ascendancy, so that the power and the will to
be reasonable may not be undermined. Reason is an operation in nature,
and has its root there. Saints cannot arise where there have been no
warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden
in the depths.

[Sidenote: To this extent there is rational society.]

Perhaps the art of politics, if it were practised scientifically, might
obviate open war, religious enmities, industrial competition, and human
slavery; but it would certainly not leave a free field for all animals
nor for all monstrosities in men. Even while admitting the claims of
monsters to be treated humanely, reason could not suffer them to absorb
those material resources which might be needed to maintain rational
society at its highest efficiency. We cannot, at this immense distance
from a rational social order, judge what concessions individual genius
would be called upon to make in a system of education and government in
which all attainable goods should be pursued scientifically. Concessions
would certainly be demanded, if not from well-trained wills, still from
inevitable