We are mistaken, I think, in taxing the generality of people with
indifference to ideals, with lack of ideas directing their lives. Few
lives are really lawless or kept in check only by the _secular arm_,
the judge or policeman. Nor is conformity to _what others do, what is
fit for one's class_ or _seemly in one's position_ a result of mere
unreasoning imitation or of the fear of being boycotted. The potency
of such considerations is largely that of summing up certain rules and
defining the permanent tendencies of the individual, or those he would
wish to be permanent; in other words, we are in the presence of
_ideals of conduct_.
Why else are certain things _those which have to be done_; whence
otherwise such expressions as _social duties_ and _keeping up one's
position_? Why such fortitude under boredom, weariness, constraint;
such heroism sometimes in taking blows and snubs, in dancing on with
broken heart-strings like the Princess in Ford's play? All this means
an ideal, nay, a religion. Yes; people, quite matter-of-fact, worldly
people, are perpetually sacrificing to ideals. And what is more, quite
superior, virtuous people, religious in the best sense of the word,
are apt to have, besides the ostensible and perhaps rather obsolete
one of churches and meeting-houses, another cultus, esoteric, unspoken
but acted upon, of which the priests and casuists are ladies'-maids
and butlers.
Now, if one could only put to profit some of this wasted dutifulness,
this useless heroism; if some of the energy put into the ideal
progress (as free from self-interest most often as the _accumulating
merit_ of Kim's Buddhist) called _getting on in the world_ could only
be applied in _getting the world along_!