there germinated in his mind the idea
that association, co-operation, would serve his ends better
than unbridled egoism in the struggle for existence. Instead
of "each man for himself" his motto became "each man for his
family, or his tribe, or his nation, or--ultimately--for
humankind." And, at a very early stage, what made for
association, co-operation, brotherhood, came to be designated
"good," while that which sinned against these upward
tendencies was stigmatized as "evil." From that moment the
battle was won, and the transfiguration of human life became
only a matter of time. The prejudice in favour of the idea of
good is the fundamental fact of our moral nature. It has an
irresistible, a magical prestige. We have made, and are still
making, a myriad mistakes--tragic and horrible mistakes--in
striving for good things which are evils in disguise. A few
of us (though relatively not very many) try to overcome the
prejudice altogether, and say, "Evil, be thou my good!" But
even these recreants and deserters from the great army of
humanity have to express themselves in terms of good, and to
take their stand on a sheer contradiction. Evil, as such, has
simply not a fighting chance. The prestige of good is
stupendous. We are all hypnotized by it; and the reason we
are slow in realizing the ideal is, not that we are evil, but
that we are stupid.

[5] London: George Allen and Unwin, 1916.

"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens"--no one had a
better right to say that than a German poet. But though the Invisible
King has made a poor fight against human stupidity, it is not really
unconquerable. If Gods cannot conquer it, men can. Its strongholds
are falling one by one, and, though a long fight is before us, its end
is not in doubt.

We may even hope, not without some plausibility, that moral progress
may be all the more rapid in the future because the limit of what
may be called mechanical progress cannot be so very far off. The
conquest of distance is the great material fact that makes for
world-organization; and distance cannot, after all, be more than
annihilated--it cannot be reduced to a minus quantity. Now that we can
whisper round the globe as we whisper round the dome of St. Paul's, we
cannot get much further on that line of advance, until immaterial
thought-transference shall enable us "to flash through