So, for the time being and the world as it may, alas! long continue, mankind will need something besides a taste for moral decency, to wit, an admiration for generous, nay, quixotic impulses and for tender sensibilities. These Intelligence, respectful towards the need for them, can neither create, nor, except by negative measures, even increase. But it can do something as necessary. Intelligence, and only Intelligence, can see to it that, even to-day, such rare and precious impulses and sensibilities be not diverted to evil results, wasted in barren self-sacrifice, or the fostering of hide-bound selfishness. Wasted, above all, in hecatombs to the Molochs of collective superstition, like the one which is only just over, and may begin again to-morrow. III PROTEUS AND ÆSTHETICS “If there be any truth in these forecasts of what your fine Intelligence may bring about or justify in the domain of ethics, then” (it’s a certain kind of reader interrupting), “then may I never enter, nay, cast a glance into this detestable world of rationalized righteousness! _Human_ do you call it, because you have made it godless? What is this Intelligence of yours worth if it fails to perceive that God exists because Man has need of Him; and that the true mission of virtue, of truth, of heroism, is not to make the world more endurable, but to satisfy our deepest human craving, that for greater harmony and loveliness, for deeper, steadier passion than otherwise life affords?”