Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new ethics.  It is quite impossible in the present state of mankind that all persons should be well educated, or that the great masses of a nation should attain to the higher forms of culture.  For the uneducated a rational system of ethics must long remain out of the question and it is proper that they should cling to the old emotional forms of moral teaching.  The observation of Huxley that he would like to see every unbeliever who could not get a reason for his unbelief publicly put to shame, was an observation of sound common sense.  It is only those whose knowledge obliges them to see things from another standpoint than that of the masses who can safely claim to base their rule of life upon philosophical morality.  The value of the philosophical morality happens to be only in those directions where it recognizes and supports the truth taught by common morality, which, after all, is the safest guide.  Therefore the philosophical moralist will never mock or oppose a belief which he knows to exercise a good influence upon human conduct.  He will recognize even the value of many superstitions as being very great; and he will understand that any attempt to suddenly change the beliefs of man in any ethical direction must be mischievous.  Such changes as he might desire will come; but they should come gradually and gently, in exact proportion to the expanding capacity of the national mind.  Recognizing this probability, several Western countries, notably America, have attempted to introduce into education an entirely new system of ethical teaching—­ethical teaching in the broadest sense, and in harmony with the new philosophy.  But the result there and elsewhere can only be that which I have said at the beginning of this lecture,—­namely, the enlargement of the old moral ideas, and the deeper comprehension of their value in all relations of life.

CHAPTER X

SOME POEMS ABOUT INSECTS

One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is the want of an index.  The importance of being able to refer at once to any subject treated of in a book was not recognized until the days when exact scholarship necessitated indexing of the most elaborate kind.  But even now we constantly find good books severely criticized because of this deficiency.  All that I have said tends to show that even to-day in Western countries the immense importance of systematic arrangement in literary collections is not sufficiently recognized.  We have, of course, a great many English anthologies,—­that is to say, collections of the best typical compositions of a certain epoch in poetry or in prose.  But you must have observed that, in Western countries, nearly all such anthologies are compiled chronologically—­not according to the subject of the poems.  To this general rule there are indeed a few exceptions.