cannot afford it. If he is to succeed, he must do as others do and walk in the beaten track. He wins wealth and position, or learning and fame. He now has the ability and means to help, others, but he no longer cares to do so. Loyalty to truth, sterling honesty-the genuine, not the conventional counterfeit unselfishness, in one word, character, these are plants of slow growth. They require cultivation by habit through long years. In his case they have become aborted and incapable of rejuvenescence. But his rudiment of a moral nature feels twinges of remorse. He ought not to have reversed the sequence of functions, and he knows it. But he cannot retrace his steps. He made the development of character impossible when he made wealth his first and chief aim. If he has a million dollars he tries to insure his soul by leaving in his will one-tenth to build a church, or, possibly, one-half for foreign missions. In the latter case he will be held up as a shining example to all the youth of the land, and the churches will ring with his praises. But what has been the effect of his life on the moral, social capital of the community? Is the world better or worse for his life? He has all his life been disseminating the germs of a soul-blight more infectious and deadly than any bodily disease.

If he has made learning or fame his chief aim, he probably has not the money to buy soul-insurance. He takes refuge in agnosticism, like an ostrich in a bush. His agnosticism is in his will; he does not wish to see. Or its cause is atrophy, through disuse, of moral vision. He cannot see. There are agnostics of quite another stamp, whom we must respect and honor for their sterling honesty and high character, though

we may have little respect for their philosophical tenets. But how much has our scholar advanced the morality of the community? He has probably done even more harm than the business man, who is a mere 66 covetous machine."

The "practical" man has reversed the sequence of functions. Character is, and must be, first; and wealth, learning, power, and fame are the materials, often exceedingly refractory, which it must subjugate to its growth and use. And this subjugation is anything but easy. The reversal of the sequence results in a moral degradation and poverty indefinitely more dangerous to the community than the slums of our great cities. For these may be controlled and cleansed; but the moral slum floods our legislatures and positions of honor and trust, and invades the churches. The mental and moral water-supply of the community is loaded with disease-germs.

The social wealth of a community is the sum total of the wealth of its individual members. And a community is truly wealthy only when this wealth is, to a certain extent, diffused. If there is any truth in our argument that the sequence of functions culminates in righteousness and unselfishness, the real social wealth of a community consists in its moral character, not in its money, or even in its intelligence. We may rest assured that character, resulting in industry and economy, will bring sufficient means of subsistence, so that all its members will be fed and housed and clothed. And art and culture, of the most ennobling and inspiring sort, will surely follow. And even if such literature failed as largely composes our present fin-de-siècle garbage-heap, we would not regret its ab

sence. That community will and must survive in which the largest proportion of members make the accumulation of character their chief and first aim. And to this community every rival must in time yield its place and power, and all its acquisitions. And in every advancing community the position of any class or profession will in time be determined by its moral wealth.

But this moral wealth is intangible. The rewards and penalties of moral law easily escape notice in our hasty and superficial study of life. The God immanent in our environment often seems to hide himself. The altar of Jehovah is fallen down, and Baal's temples are crowded with loud-mouthed worshippers. The bribes of present enjoyment and of immediate success loom up before us, and we doubt if any other success is possible.

But the law of progress, even now so dimly discernible in environment, is written in our minds in letters of fire. For we have already seen that environment can be understood only by tracing its effects in the development of life. What is best and highest in us is the record of the working of what is best and highest in environment. And the personal God so dimly seen in environment is revealed in man's soul. Man must study himself, if he is to know what environment requires of him. And if the knowledge of himself and of the laws of his being is the highest knowledge, is not the vision of, and struggle toward, higher attainments, not yet realized and hence necessarily foreseen, the only mode of farther progress? And what is this pursuit of, and devotion to, ideals not yet realized and but dimly foreseen, if it is not

Faith, "the substance of things hoped for, and evidence of things not seen?" By it alone can man "obtain a good report." Man must "walk by faith, not by sight." "For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

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CHAPTER VIII

MAN

IN Kingsley's fascinating historical romance, Raphael Aben-Ezra says to Hypatia, "Is it not possible that we have been so busy discussing what the philosopher should be, that we have forgotten that he must first of all be a man?" This truth we too often forget. No statesman, philosopher, least of all teacher, can be truly great who is not, first of all, and above all, a great man. And in our study of man are we not prone to forget that he stands in certain very definite and close relations with surrounding nature?

Man has been the object of so much special study, his position, owing to his higher moral and mental power, is so unique that he has often been regarded not only as a special creation, but as created to occupy a position not only unique, but also exceptional, above many of the very laws of nature, and not bound by them. Many speak and write of him as if it were his chief glory and prerogative to be as far removed as possible, not only from the animal, but even from the whole realm of nature. The mistake of making him an exception arises, after all, not so much from too high a conception of man, at least of his possibilities, as from too low a view of nature.

But however this view may have arisen, it is onesided and mistaken. Man certainly has a place in