In discussing the highest faculties of man we have so far refrained from using the word "genius." It is a word which has been cheapened by misuse, but we are now in position to use it. The things which we have just been considering are the phenomena of genius--and we can say this, even though we may not know exactly what genius is. Perhaps it is, as Frederic Myers asserts, a "subliminal uprush," the welling up into the consciousness of some part of the content of the subconscious mind. Or perhaps it is something of what man calls "divine." Or perhaps it is the first dawning, the first hint of that super-race which will some day replace mankind. Perhaps we are witnessing the same thing that happened on the earth when glimmerings of reason first broke upon the mind of some poor, bewildered ape. We cannot be sure; but this much we can say: the man of genius represents the highest activity of the mind of which we as yet have knowledge. He represents the spirit of man, fully emancipated, fully conscious, and taking up the task of creation; taking human life as raw material, and making it over into something more subtle, more intense, more significant, more universal than it ever was before, or ever would have been without the intervention of this new God-man. CHAPTER X MYSELF AND MY NEIGHBOR (Compares the new morality with the old, and discusses the relative importance of our various duties.) So now we may say that we know what are the great and important things in life. Slowly and patiently, with infinite distress and waste and failure, but yet inevitably, the life of man is being made over and multiplied to infinity, by the power of the thinking mind, impelled by the joy and thrill of the creative action, and guided by the sense of responsibility, the instinct to serve, which we call conscience. To develop these higher faculties is the task we have before us, and the supreme act to which we dedicate ourselves. So now we are in position to define the word moral. Assuming that our argument be accepted, that action is moral which tends to foster the best and highest forms of life we know, and to aid them in developing their highest powers; that is immoral which tends to destroy the best life we know, or to hinder its rapid development. Let us now proceed to apply these tests to the practices of man; first as an individual, and then as a social being. What are my duties to myself, and what are my duties to the world about me?