history or appreciate it. Its rank in school studies is an inheritance of European tradition. Popular opinion does not recognize its position as fit and just. Its effect on the minds and mores of the pupils is almost nil, unless the history deals directly with the mores.

709. The study of history and the study of the mores. There is, therefore, great need for a clearer understanding of the relation between the study of history and the study of the mores. Abraham Lincoln's career illustrated in many ways the mores of his time, and the knowledge of some of the facts about the mores would have been by no means idle or irrelevant for a policeman. In like manner it may well be that other branches of study pursued in our schools contain valuable instruction or discipline, but it does not lie on the surface, and it is an art to get it out and bring it to the attention of the scholar.

710. The most essential element in education. A man's education never stops as long as he lives. All the experience of life is educating him. In school days he is undergoing education by the contact of life, and by what he does or suffers. This education is transferring to him the mores. He learns what conduct is approved or disapproved; what kind of man is admired most; how he ought to behave in all kinds of cases; and what he ought to believe or reject. This education goes on by minute steps, often repeated. The influences make the man. All this constitutes evidently the most essential and important education. If we understand what the mores are, and that the contact with one's fellows is all the time transmitting them, we can better understand, and perhaps regulate to some extent, this education.

711. The history of the mores is needed. The modern historians turn with some disdain away from the wars, intrigues, and royal marriages which the old-fashioned historians considered their chief interest, and many of them have undertaken to write the history of the "people." Evidently they have perceived that what is wanted is a history of the mores. If they can get that they can extract from the history what is most universal and permanent in its interest.

CHAPTER XX

LIFE POLICY. VIRTUE vs. SUCCESS

Life policy. Oaths; truthfulness vs. success. - The clever hero.Odysseus, Rother, Njal. - Clever heroes in German epics. - Lack of historic sense amongst Christians. Success policy in the Italian Renaissance. Divergence between convictions and conduct. — Classical learning a fad. The humanists.- Individualism. - Perverted use of words. - Extravagance of passions and acts. The sex relation and the position of women. The cult of success. Literature on the mores. Moral anarchy.

712. Life policy. Some primitive or savage groups are very truthful, both in narrative and in regard to their promises or pledged word. Other groups are marked by complete neglect of truthfulness. Falsehood and deceit are regarded as devices by which to attain success in regard to interests. The North American Indians generally regarded deceit by which an enemy was outwitted as praiseworthy; in fact it was a part of the art of war. It is still so regarded in modern civilized warfare. It is, however, limited by rules of morality. There was question whether the deception by which Aguinaldo was captured was within the limit. In sport also, which is a sort of mimic warfare, deception and "jockeying" are more or less recognized as legitimate. Samoan children are taught that it is "unsamoan" to tell the truth. It is stupid, because it sacrifices one's interest.1 It does not appear that the experience of life teaches truthfulness on any of the lower stages. The truthful peoples are generally the isolated, unwarlike, and simple. Warfare and strength produce cunning and craft. It is only at the highest stage of civilization that deceit is regarded with contempt, and is thought not to pay. That honesty is the best policy is current doctrine, but not established practice now. It is a part of a virtue policy, which is inculcated as right and necessary, but whether it is a success policy is not a closed question.

1 Globus, LXXXIII, 374.

713. Oaths. Truthfulness vs. success. It is evident that truthfulness or untruthfulness, when either is a group characteristic, is due to a conviction that societal welfare is served by one or the other Truthfulness is, therefore, primary in the It does not proceed from the religion, but the religion furnishes a sanction for the view which prevails in the mores. Oaths and imprecations are primitive means of invoking the religious sanction in promises and contracts. They always implied that the superior powers would act in the affairs of men in a proposed way, if the oath maker should break his word. This implication failed so regularly that faith in oaths never could be maintained. Since they have fallen into partial disuse the expediency of truthfulness has been perceived, and the value of a reputation for it has been recognized. Thus it has become a question whether a true success policy is to be based on truth or falsehood. The mores of groups contain their answer, which they inculcate on the young.

714. The clever hero. Krishna. The wily and clever hero, who knows what to do to get out of a difficulty, or to accomplish a purpose, is a very popular character in the great epics. In the Mahabharata Krishna is such a hero, who invents stratagems and policies for the Panduings in their strife with the Kuruings. The king of the latter, when dying, declares that the Panduings have always been dishonorable and tricky, while he and his party have always adhered to honorable methods. However, he is dying and his party is almost annihilated. The victors are somewhat affected by his taunts, which refer to Krishna's inventions and suggestions, but Krishna shows them the booty and says: "But for my stratagems you would have had none of these fine things. What do you care that you got them by tricks? Do you not want them?" They applaud and praise him. Then the surviving Kuruings, weary of virtue and defeat, surprise and murder the Panduings in the night, an act which was contrary to the code of honorable war. The antagonism of a virtue policy and a success policy could not be more strongly presented.1 In

1 Holtzmann, Indische Sagen, I, 170.

the same poem Samarishta says that five lies are allowed when one's life or property is in danger. The wicked lie is one uttered before witnesses in reply to a serious question, and the only real lie is one uttered of set purpose for selfish gain. Yayati, however, says, "I may not be false, even though I should be in direst peril." The heroes fear to falsify, and the Vedas are quoted that a lie is the greatest sin.2 The clever hero has remained the popular hero. At the present day we are told that Ganesa, or Gana-pati, son of Siva, really represents "a complex personification of sagacity, shrewdness, patience, and selfreliance, of all those qualities, in short, which overcome hindrances and difficulties, whether in performing religious acts, writing books, building houses, making journeys, or undertaking anything. He is before all things the typical embodiment of success in life, with its usual accompaniments of good living, plenteousness, prosperity, and peace."3 The Persians, from the most ancient times, have been noted liars. They used truth and falsehood as instruments of success. The relation of king and subject and of husband and wife amongst them were false. They were invented and maintained for a purpose.4

715. Odysseus. The Greeks admired cunning and successful stratagem. Odysseus was wily. He was a clever hero. His maternal grandfather Autolykos was, by endowment of Hermes (a god of lying and stealing), a liar and thief beyond all men.5

716. Clever hero in German epics. In the German poems of the twelfth century Rother is a king who accomplishes his ends by craft. In the Nibelungen, Hagen is the efficient man, who, in any crisis, knows what to do and can accomplish it by craft and strength combined. The heroes are noteworthy for tricks, stratagems, ruses, and perfidy. In all the epic poems the princes have by their side mentors who are crafty, fertile in resource, and clever in action. In the Icelandic saga of

1 Holtzmann, Indische Sagen, I, 105. 2 Ibid., 23, 37, 119.

3 Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism, 216.

4 Hartmann, Ztsft.d. V. f. Volkskunde, XI, 247.

5 Od., XIX, 394.

6 Lichtenberger, Nibelungen, 334, 354.

7 Uhland, Dichtung und Sage, 232.

Burnt Njal, Njal is the knowing man, peaceful and friendly. His crafty devices are chiefly due to his knowledge of the law, which was full of chicane and known to few. These clever heroes, developed out of the mores of one period and fixed in the epics, became standards and guides for the mores of later times, in which they were admired as types of what every one I would like to be.

717. Lack of historic sense amongst Christians. In the first centuries of the Christian era no school of religion or philosophy thought that it was an inadmissible proceeding to concoct edifying writings and attribute them to some great authority of earlier centuries, or to invent historical documents to advance a cause or support the claims of a sect. This view came down to the Middle Ages. The lack of historic feeling is well shown by the crusaders who, after Antioch was taken, in the next few days and on the spot, began to write narratives of the deeds of their respective commanders which were not true, but were exaggerated, romantic, and imaginary. They were not derived from observation of facts, but were fashioned upon the romances of chivalry. This was not myth making. It was conscious reveling in poetic creation according to the prevailing literary type. It was not falsehood, but it showed an entire absence of the sense of historic truth. In the case of the canon law, "the decretals were intended to furnish a documentary title, running back to apostolic times, for the divine institution of the primacy of the pope, and for the teaching office of bishops; a title which in truth did not exist."2 There was probably lacking in the minds of the men who invented the decretals all consciousness of antagonism between fact and their literary work. If they could have been confronted with the ethical question, they would probably have said that they knew that the doctrines in question were true, and that if the fathers had had occasion to speak of them they would have said such things as were put in their mouths. Medieval history writing was not subject to canons of truth or taste. It included what was edifying, to the glory of }

1 Kugler, Kreuzzüge, 52.

2 Eicken, Mittelalterl. Weltanschauung, 656.