Of course, if we have decided what the final purpose or life of Man is, then we may say that what is good for that purpose is finally "good," and what is bad for that purpose is finally "evil." The Eastern philosophy, as I have said, deciding that the final purpose of Man is identification with Brahm, declares _all_ actions to be evil (even the most saintly) which are done by the self as separate from Brahm; and all actions as good which are done in the condition of _vidya_ or conscious union. But here, though a final good and evil are allowed and acknowledged, as existing respectively in the conditions of vidya or avidya, those conditions altogether escape any external rule or classification. Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, taking up this subject not long ago in a criticism[46] of Mr. Orage's little book on Nietzsche, said that all this talk about "beyond good and evil" was nonsense; that we must have some code; and that in effect, any code, even a bad one, was better than none. And one sees what he means. It is perfectly true, in a sense, that the harness, the shafts, and the blinkers keep a large part of the world on the beaten road and out of the ditch, and that folk are always to be found who, rather than use their higher faculties, will rely on these external guides; but to encourage this kind of salvation by blinkers seems the very reverse of what ought to be done; and one might even ask whether salvation by such means is salvation at all--whether the ditch were not better! Besides, what _can_ we do? It is not so much that we are deliberately abandoning the codes as that they are abandoning us. With the gradual infiltration of new ideas, of Eastern thought, of Darwinian philosophy, of customs and creeds of races other than our own, with Bernard Shaw lecturing on the futility of the Ten Commandments, and so forth, it is not difficult to see that in a short while it will be impossible to rehabilitate any of the ancient codes or to give them a sanction and a sense of awe in the public mind. If with Gilbert Chesterton we should succeed in bolstering up such a thing for a time--well, it will only be for a time. And the question is, whether the time has not really come for us to stand up--like sensible men and women--and _do without rules_; whether we cannot trust ourselves at last to throw aside the blinkers. The question is whether we cannot realise that solid and central life which underlies and yet surpasses all rules. For truly, if we cannot do this, our state is pitiable--having ceased to believe in the letter of Morality, and yet unable to find its spirit!