'OF all idealists Jesus Christ was the most pre-eminent. . . . The school of idealism is the very antithesis of the school of selfinterest. The motive of self-interest not only is, but must be and ought to be, the only mainspring of human conduct.'

In this recent utterance of a politician there lies a direct challenge to the religion which is still nominally, if not actually, the religion of Europe. We owe something to the candour of the speaker. He has here made explicit what for long has been implicit in business, political and international affairs. It has come to be tacitly assumed that Christian principles of morality do not apply to such questions as these, and their intrusion is resented as mere sentimental idealism. It was not always so. In spite of the many anomalies of the Middle Ages, it was generally recognised then that 'the whole compass of human interest was the province of religion.' But during the last two centuries we can trace a gradual process whereby human life has come to be divided into the sacred and the secular. This has culminated in the paradox that while Christianity is still recognised, at least VOL. XCV-No. 563

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theoretically, as a fitting rule for individual conduct, it has little or no claim to authority in business or politics. In this domain expediency, not principle, counts.

To suggest that an individual is not a Christian [says a recent writer on economics] is libellous. To preach in public that Christianity is absurd is legally blasphemous. To state that the social ethics of the New Testament are obligatory on men in the business affairs which occupy nine-tenths of their thoughts, or on the industrial organisation which gives society its character, is to preach revolution. To suggest that they apply to the relations of States may be held to be seditious.

This is not to be denied. The wholesale disregard of Christian principles which characterises our economic, industrial and international activities would be apparent to any thoughtful person who walked for a short hour about the world's markets, or listened in our council chambers to-day. Behind all that is said and done. he would find the spirit of restless and unbridled competition; and through the shifting stage-play that we call our social life the demon of self-interest is calling the tune. For the note resounds every time he walks abroad or looks into the columns of his newspaper.

Perhaps nowhere more clearly than here is the spirit of the age reflected. While the influence of the newspaper on public opinion is more absolute and far-reaching than it has ever been since the Press first became a power to be reckoned with, evidence of the competition of one paper with another for an ever increasing circulation is seldom absent from the pages of the cheaper Press. Much must be sacrificed to this. And since about 70 per cent. of its sale is dependent upon the goodwill of a frankly uneducated public, the newspaper must cater for that public. Nowhere is this quick compliance of supply with demand more manifest than in the domain of sport. Betting, a diversion which, under the guise of sportsmanship, has become an occupation so absorbing as to override all other interests, is fed and fattened by the Press. If newspapers were considerate enough and courageous enough to devote less space to racing 'tips' and racing results the man in the street, whose 'sportsmanship' is composed of a touching fidelity to his 'finals,' might be saved much heartburning and a substantial proportion of his pay. Nor is racing news the only or most noxious 'draw' by which the newspaper strives to augment its sales and increase its popularity. There is always the appetite for sensation to be seized upon, satisfied and surfeited. Indeed, the word 'sensational' has become such a journalistic shibboleth that hardly a day passes when some item of news is not served up in the companionship of this meaningless but objectionable catchpenny adjective. Football results, trials, political speeches and revelations are all 'sensational.' If they

are not already so they most certainly will be by the time that the reporter has done with them. And behind the rotten matter and often faulty phraseology of these sensational columns one watches the ogre of self-interest at work, with both eyes on the balancesheet. This taste for cheapness' is the more to be regretted since there are so many journals, both in town and country, whose excellent standards of journalism and adherence to the highest traditions of the Press constitute the best protest against this sort of newspaper. In Art the market is controlled by the same uncompromising director. Art for art's sake is an ideal for which scant room can be found in a world where the value of most works of art is assessed by their saleable qualities only, and we have witnessed the same influence at work in the steady but persistent commercialising' of music and the drama.

That self-interest is, if not the only, at any rate the chief, motive of human action in these and other departments, is obvious. This we are so far from denying that we can find in it the causes of most of our troubles to-day. It is only with the must and ought to be that we disagree. No one has ever suggested that the Christian ideal has ever been even remotely realised. But the deliberate rejection of these ideals in favour of a definite policy of self-interest is a Julian apostasy which, if persisted in, would quickly lead the world back to paganism, and that at a time when we stand in greater need of Christianity than ever. For the more complex our civilisation becomes, so much greater is the dependence of individual upon individual, of class upon class, of nation upon nation; so much greater is the danger of a deliberate policy of self-interest; so much the more need we have of co-operation, goodwill, self-sacrifice and the moral principle on which they are based.

The unabashed apotheosis of self-interest, and the consequent dethronement of a religion whose fundamental tenets directly oppose it, is partly a reaction from the emotional stress of the war and partly the logical outcome of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a class who understand no use for it but the selfish and personal. The materialistic tendencies of to-day are in part the aftermath of the great upheaval of 1914-1918. Have they not been the recognised legacy of every war in modern history? Under the sturm und drang of war ideals of altruism and sacrifice were revived. The immortal, compelling truth of Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' came home again to a nation which had allowed its patriotism to slumber for the want of a great awakening. Reaction was inevitable. The millennium which was to dawn as soon as Armageddon was over is further off than ever. Jerusalem has not yet been builded on England's green and pleasant land, nor have we succeeded yet in reconstructing an island fit for heroes

to live in. The cynic who sees the promises of peace failing, one by one, in a melancholy succession is to be excused for branding the whole business of war as the worst kind of madness, and for asking of what use were the sacrifices in the light of the world as it is to-day. The very word 'patriotism ' has come to be distrusted by the proletariat as a propagandist invention of the war profiteer and the capitalist. War, like any great adventure, is productive of fine enthusiasms; and we are living on the rebound.

But post-war reaction is not wholly responsible for the welter of materialism in which the country seems to be involved. Some of the evil undoubtedly lies in the emergence of a self-indulgent plutocracy. It would be well if our would-be economic reformers would concern themselves less with the distribution of wealth than with its disbursement. 'Nobody should be rich,' wrote Goethe, but those who understand it.' Unfortunately, these are not many. The sight of uncontrolled wealth confronts us whichever way we turn. The financial straits into which our hospitals have been thrown are but one result of the sudden affluence of a class of people who have no conception of the use of money. It is significant of the times that appeals for help are abortive unless such appeals are bolstered up with the promise of material advantage to the giver. 'Win a fortune and help the hospitals,' runs the poster. But the days have been, and must be again, when such help was not dependent upon the chances of winning anything but the gratitude of suffering humanity. Get rich quickly' is the theme; it does not much matter how. The scramble for securing money with a minimum of labour is an evil spectacle, nor has the ostentatious display of wealth which still characterises a certain section of the community grown less brazen or less barbarous than when Midas perpetrated his classic vulgarity. Truly,' said someone, 'you can tell what God thinks of money by the kind of people He gives it to.' We need have no cause to be ashamed of the Napoleonic taunt that we are a nation of shopkeepers. The trouble only begins when we become a nation of shop owners.

But these are accidental causes. There is another and a deeper. The world is suffering from the result of a long process in the history of science whereby a purely mechanical theory of the universe has been evolved. This process saw its culmination in Darwin's theory of evolution which seemed at first sight to reduce the whole of life to a fierce struggle for existence where physical force and a mechanical adaptation to environment were the only means of survival. It was the development of the power of reason that brought man to the top; and reason in itself was no more than a sharper weapon in the struggle than tooth and claw. It was therefore assumed by many as once for all decided