What pass for opposing arguments are really rival appeals; and it is interesting to observe that the appeal which, to the unreflecting, seems the most rational is the appeal to selfishness. I am told[6] that on any fine Sunday afternoon in some of our big towns you may find an orator asking why any man should love his country. “What,” he inquires, “does a man get by it? Will national success bring either to himself or to any of his hearers more food, more drink, more amusements? If not, why make personal sacrifices for what will never confer personal advantage?” To this particular question it might be replied (though not always with truth) that the antithesis is a false one, and that on the whole the selfish ideal and the patriotic ideal are both promoted by the same policy of public service. But there is another question of the same type to which no such answer is possible. We have all heard it, either in jest or in earnest. “Why” (it is asked) “should we do anything for posterity, seeing that posterity will do nothing for us?” The implication is infamous, but the statement is true. We cannot extract from posterity an equivalent for the sacrifices we make on its behalf. These are debts that will never be recovered. The unborn cannot be sued; the dead cannot be repaid. But what then? Altruism is not based on egoism; it is not egoism in disguise. The ends to which it points are ends in themselves; and their value is quite independent of argument, neither capable of proof nor requiring it. In what, then, consists the psychological (as distinguished from the organic) “fitness” of the higher moral ideals? If it cannot be found in their practical efficiency, nor yet in their argumentative plausibility, where shall we seek it? Sometimes, no doubt, the explanation is to be found in their association with a culture, other elements of which do possess both these kinds of “fitness.” Thus Western morality—or (to be accurate) Western notions of morality—find favour with backward races, because they are associated with Western armaments and Western arts. Again, they may be diffused, perhaps as part of some militant religion, by the power of the sword or by its prestige. They reach new regions in the train of a conqueror, and willingly or unwillingly the conquered accept them.