shines above all the mists of the day. Through the ruins of creeds and philosophies, which have for ages disdained it, we are retracing our steps toward that height—just as the Athenians did two thousand years ago. It rests on no metaphysic, no sacred legend, no disputable tradition—nothing that scepticism can corrode or advancing knowledge undermine. Its foundations are the fundamental and unchanging impulses of our nature. Its features are as clear and attractive to the child as to the philosopher. Philosophers will, of course, declare it superficial; but we may remind them that all their supposed deeper probing of reality, from Pythagoras to Bergson, has ended in a confusion of contradictory guesses. Churchmen will declare with horror that it is “materialistic”; and we may remind them that for fifteen centuries they have taught Europe to place its highest good in happiness. If the happiness they promised is getting doubtful, we make sure of what we can. In truth, however, no nobler aim ever inspired action, and none is so fitted to appeal to modern man. It is, in fact, the mainspring of nearly all the progressive activity of our time. The more doubtful all else becomes, the more determined men and women are to be happy in this world. Thrones and creeds and institutions, even moral codes, are brought to judgment to-day before that ideal. It is more profitable to judge the living than the dead.
This ideal is the chief inspiration of the rebellious
