THE HARMONY OF VIRTUE

I. 2. Beauty in the Real67human nature nor to our personality but to a more subtle partof us.”“I see,” he replied with a smile, “you shy at the spectre ofheredity. Well, we will lay the spectre.”“And a spectre it is, or rather a scarecrow,” put in PrinceParadox, “for it seems to me neither beautiful as an idea norsound as a theory but merely the last resource of bad psychologists.”“I see the lovers of the past as iconoclastic from regret asthe lovers of the future from aspiration. We are then agreed thatour first step will be to reject or accept heredity?”We all assented.“And now, Prince Paradox,” he cried, “will you tell me thatyou do not believe in race?”“God forbid.”“And you agree with me that an Aryan is various from anon-Aryan and a Teuton from a Celt and a Celt from a Hindu,and a Rajput from a Mahratta and that this is fine as an ideaand sound as a theory and consonant with Nature, which is fondof sphering harmony within harmony.”“Yes, I agree with all that.”“And by origin the Saxon varies from the Celt, and is meantfor the drudgery of life and not for its beauty and splendour,just as by origin the thistle varies from the rose and is not gloriousnor wonderful but simply decent and useful and good dietfor donkeys.”“That is true.”“Then if race divergences result from origin, and origin isheredity, is it not? — is not heredity real and not a sciolism?”“Yes, in broad masses, but not in the individual. What is saucefor the goose abstract is not sauce for the positive gander.”“It would take a positive goose to deny that. But synthesisis the secret of Philosophy and not analysis, and we err widelywhen we work from without rather than from within. Let us rectifyour methods or we shall arrive at incomplete results. I trust someof you are proficient in text-book Psychology?”We all disclaimed the text-book.“That is fortunate, for I can now make ridiculous mistakes