history of Idols and of their successive reigns; and as
humanity grows older the power of the Idol seems to wax greater and more
destructive.

At first the divinities were of wood, of stone, or of metal. Those at
any rate were not proof against the axe or against fire. Others followed
that no material force could reach, for they were graven in the
invisible mind. Yet all aspired to material dominion, and to secure for
them that dominion the peoples of the world have poured out their best
blood: Idols of religions and of nationality: the Idol of liberty whose
reign was established in Europe by the armies of the _sans-culotte_ at
the point of the bayonet. The masters have changed, the slaves are still
the same. Our century has made the acquaintance of two new species. The
Idol of Race, at first the outcome of noble ideas, became in the
laboratories of spectacled savants the Moloch which Germany herself
hurled against France in 1870 and which her enemies now wish to use
against the Germany of today. The latest on the scene is that authentic
product of German science, fraternally allied to the labors of industry,
of commerce, and of the firm of Krupp--the Idol of Kultur surrounded by
its Levites, the thinkers of Germany.

* * * * *

The common feature of the cult of all Idols is the adaptation of an
ideal to the evil instincts of mankind. Man cultivates the vices which
are profitable to him, but feels the necessity of legitimizing them;
being unwilling to sacrifice them, he must idealize them. That is why
the problem at which he has never ceased to labor throughout the
centuries has been to harmonize his ideals with his own mediocrity. He
has always succeeded. The crowd has no difficulty here. It sets side by
side its virtues and its vices, its heroism and its meanness. The force
of its passions and the rapid course of the days which carry it along
cause it to forget its lack of logic.

But the intelligent few cannot satisfy themselves with so little effort.
Not that they are, as is often said, less readily swayed by passion.
This is a grave error; the richer a life becomes the more does it offer
for passion to devour, and history sufficiently shows the terrifying
paroxysms to which the lives of religious leaders and revolutionaries
have attained. But these toilers in the spirit love careful work, and
are repelled by popular modes of thought which perpetually break through
the meshes of r