ver to become forgotten. So much for the mental
history of the question. Let us say a word about the physical aspects of
it.

No doubt you have read that the result of macerating the body, of
depriving oneself of all comfort, and even of nourishing food, is not an
increase of intellectual vigour or moral power of any kind. And in one
sense this is true. The individual who passes his life in
self-mortification is not apt to improve under that regime. For this
reason the founder of the greatest of Oriental religions condemned
asceticism on the part of his followers, except within certain fixed
limits. But the history of the changes produced by a universal idea is not
a history of changes in the individual, but of changes brought about by
the successive efforts of millions of individuals in the course of many
generations. Not in one lifetime can we perceive the measure of ethical
force obtained by self-control; but in the course of several hundreds of
years we find that the result obtained is so large as to astonish us. This
result, imperceptibly obtained, signifies a great increase of that nervous
power upon which moral power depends; it means an augmentation in strength
of every kind; and this augmentation again represents what we might call
economy. Just as there is a science of political economy, there is a
science of ethical economy; and it is in relation to such a science that
we should rationally consider the influence of all religions teaching
self-suppression. So studying, we find that self-suppression does not mean
the destruction of any power, but only the economical storage of that
power for the benefit of the race As a result, the highly civilized man
can endure incomparably more than the savage, whether of moral or physical
strain. Being better able to control himself under all circumstances, he
has a great advantage over the savage.

That which is going on in the new teaching of ethics is really the
substitution of a rational for an emotional morality. But this does not
mean that the value of the emotional element in morality is not
recognized. Not only is it recognized, but it is even being
enlarged--enlarged, however, in a rational way. For example, let us take
the very emotional virtue of loyalty. Loyalty, in a rational form, could
not exist among an uneducated people; it could only exist as a feeling, a
sentiment. In the primitive state of society this sentiment takes the
force and the depth of a religi