Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/102

to be opposing something which others think good. The practical result of his peculiar study is that he can rarely throw himself thoroughly into any violent "movement" for the salvation, education, enlightenment, or amusement of mankind. Prophets labour for Humanity in their own way; but their way is seldom one that contemporaries understand. If we wish to realize why such men as H. Spencer, Renan, Maudsley, Hinton, are not noted for what is called Philanthropic Zeal, we must ask ourselves why men of that stamp would not have joined in the popular movements of the past. There was a time when wine was a new discovery. It allayed certain forms of suffering; it ministered to the heightening of certain faculties; clearly, then, wine was the gift of a God; men should drink it in reverent homage to the Divine Giver, and show their gratitude by doing all in their power to induce others to accept the gift. Alas! the Herbert Spencer of that day was only too sure that there must come a reaction; he could not become a Bacchus-worshipper. By and by the bad side of the alcoholism revealed itself; Bacchus-worship was discovered to be vice fostered by pious emotion. The new philanthropists preached a crusade against wine; for what could be more clear than that wine was bad? The Renan of that day could not become an advocate of total abstinence; he told his hearers that Bacchus-worship must have had its good side, or it could not have enlisted so many followers. So it is now. The Prophet knows that much which is called Education means forcing the young brain to give off, in wasteful and useless display, the latent force stored up by our ancestors; that much which is called progress in civili-