Out of the mediaeval city founded upon militarism there arose in the thirteenth century a new order, the middle class, whose importance rested, not upon birth or arms, but upon wealth, intelligence, and organization. This middle class achieved a sterling success in the succeeding six centuries of industrialism because it was essential to the existence and development of the industrial era. Perhaps we can forecast the career of woman, the citizen, if she is permitted to bear an elector’s part in the coming period of humanitarianism in which government must concern itself with human welfare. She will bear her share of civic responsibility because she is essential to the normal development of the city of the future, and because the definition of the loyal citizen as one who is ready to shed his blood for his country, has become inadequate and obsolete. FOOTNOTES: [15] A Case for the Factory Acts. Mrs. Sidney Webb. CHAPTER VIII PASSING OF THE WAR VIRTUES Of all the winged words which Tolstoy wrote during the war between Russia and Japan, perhaps none are more significant than these: “The great strife of our time is not that now taking place between the Japanese and the Russians, nor that which may blaze up between the white and the yellow races, nor that strife which is carried on by mines, bombs, and bullets, but that spiritual strife which, without ceasing, has gone on and is going on between the enlightened consciousness of mankind now awaiting for manifestation and that darkness and that burden which surrounds and oppresses mankind.” In the curious period of accommodation in which we live, it is possible for old habits and new compunctions to be equally powerful, and it is almost a matter of pride with us that we neither break with the old nor yield to the new. We call this attitude tolerance, whereas it is often mere confusion of mind. Such mental confusion is strikingly illustrated by our tendency to substitute a statement of the historic evolution of an ideal of conduct in place of the ideal itself. This almost always occurs when the ideal no longer accords with our faithful experience of life and when its implications are not justified by our latest information. In this way we spare ourselves the necessity of pressing forward to newer ideals of conduct. We quote the convictions and achievements of the past as an excuse for ourselves when we lack the energy either to throw off old moral codes which have become burdens or to attain a morality proportionate to our present sphere of activity.