ar with
ideas which have only slowly and gradually dawned upon myself. I have
no intention of trying to refute or convince my critics, and I beg them
with all my heart to say what they think about my books, because only by
the frank interchange of ideas can we arrive at the truth.

But what I am going to try to do in this chapter is to examine the
theory by virtue of which my book is condemned, and I am going to try
to give the fullest weight to the considerations urged against it. I
am sure there is something in what the critics say, but I believe that
where we differ is in this. The critics who disapprove of my book seem
to me to think that all men are cast in the same mould, and that the
principles which hold good for some necessarily hold good for all. What
I like best about their criticisms is that they are made in a spirit of
moral earnestness and ethical seriousness. I am a serious man myself,
and I rejoice to see others serious. The point of view which they
seem to recommend is the point of view of a certain kind of practical
strenuousness, the gospel of push, if I may so call it. They seem to
hold that people ought to be discontented with what they are, that they
ought to try to better themselves, that they ought to be active,
and what they call normal; that when they have done their work as
energetically as possible, they should amuse themselves energetically
too, take hard exercise, shout and play,

"Pleased as the Indian boy to run
And shoot his arrows in the sun,"

and that then they should recreate themselves like Homeric heroes,
eating and drinking, listening comfortably to the minstrel, and take
their fill of love in a full-blooded way.

That is, I think, a very good theory of life for some people, though I
think it is a little barbarous; it is Spartan rather than Athenian.

Some of my critics take a higher kind of ground, and say that I want to
minimise and melt down the old stern beliefs and principles of morality
into a kind of nebulous emotion. They remind me a little of an old
country squire of whom I have heard, of the John Bull type, whose
younger son, a melancholy and sentimental youth, joined the Church of
Rome. His father was determined that this should not separate them, and
asked him to come home and talk it over. He told his eldest son that
he was going to remonstrate with the erring youth in a simple and
affectionate way. The eldest son said that he hoped his father woul