fall for him into the category of carrion, or not-carrion. If he knows
himself as spirit, as the energy of love or reason, if the prime
necessity he recognizes within himself is the necessity to be good, then
the universe becomes for him an instrument wherewith moral character is
evolved. In all cases alike, his life-work is an effort to rob the world
of its alien character, and to translate it into terms of himself.

We are in the habit of fixing a chasm between a man's deeds and his
metaphysical, moral, and religious creed; and even of thinking that he
can get on "in a sufficiently prosperous manner," without any such
creed. Can we not digest without a theory of peptics, or do justice
without constructing an ideal state? The truest answer, though it is an
answer easily misunderstood, is that we cannot. In the sphere of
morality, at least, action, depends on knowledge: Socrates was right in
saying that virtuous conduct ignorant of its end is accidental. Man's
action, so far as it is good or evil, is shot through and through with
his intelligence. And once we clearly distinguish between belief and
profession, between the motives which really impel our actions and the
psychological account of them with which we may deceive ourselves and
others, we shall be obliged to confess that we always act our creed. A
man's conduct, just because he is man, is generated by his view of
himself and his world. He who cheats his neighbour believes in
tortuosity, and, as Carlyle says, has the Supreme Quack for his God. No
one ever acted without some dim, though perhaps foolish enough,
half-belief that the world was at his back; whether he plots good or
evil he always has God as an accomplice. And this is why character
cannot be really bettered by any peddling process. Moralists and
preachers are right in insisting on the need of a new life, that is, of
a new principle, as the basis of any real improvement; and such a
principle necessarily carries in it a new attitude towards men, and a