But these associations are seemingly quite casual. The prestige of Western arts and science may assist the diffusion of Western morals, as it assists the diffusion of Western languages, or Western clothes. Conquests by Mahommedan or Christian States may substitute a higher for a lower ethical creed in this or that region of the world. Such cases, however, leave us still in the realm of accident. The causes thus assigned for the spread of a particular type of ethical ideal have nothing to do with the quality of that type. They would promote bad morals not less effectively than good; as a hose will, with equal ease, scatter dirty water or clean. Moreover, the growth of the higher type in its place of origin is left wholly unexplained. Its “fitness” seems a mere matter of luck due neither to design nor to any natural imitation of design. The rigour of this conclusion would be little mitigated even if we could connect psychological fitness with some quite non-moral peculiarity habitually associated with the higher morality, but not with the lower. If, for example, the former were found to lead normally to worldly success, its repute would need no further explanation. If, in private life, those endowed with Sir Charles Grandison’s merits usually possessed Sir Charles Grandison’s estate, if, in political or national life, victory and virtue went ever hand in hand, morality might be none the better, but certainly it would be more the fashion. Heaven would be wearied with prayers for an unselfish spirit, uttered by suppliants from purely selfish motives. Saints would become the darlings of society, and the book of Job would be still unwritten.[7]