I cannot
help thinking that a consciousness of the relativity of values, if it
became prevalent, would tend to render people more truly social than
would a belief that things have intrinsic and unchangeable values, no
matter what the attitude of any one to them may be. If we said that
goods, including the right distribution of goods, are relative to
specific natures, moral warfare would continue, but not with poisoned
arrows. Our private sense of justice itself would be acknowledged to
have but a relative authority, and while we could not have a higher
duty than to follow it, we should seek to meet those whose aims were
incompatible with it as we meet things physically inconvenient,
without insulting them as if they were morally vile or logically
contemptible. Real unselfishness consists in sharing the interests of
others. Beyond the pale of actual unanimity the only possible
unselfishness is chivalry--a recognition of the inward right and
justification of our enemies fighting against us. This chivalry has
long been practised in the battle-field without abolishing the causes
of war; and it might conceivably be extended to all the conflicts of
men with one another, and of the warring elements within each breast.
Policy, hypnotisation, and even surgery may be practised without
exorcisms or anathemas.
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