And it is the same in morals. Those virtues most
valued by Christ Himself, love, self-sacrifice, fellowship,
are, to begin with, instincts most valuable in the struggle
for life, valuable to the herd at least, if not to the
individual. The type of all love is the love of a mother
for her child ; and that is an animal instinct without
which the race could not survive. But man has the
divine faculty of recognising it to be a virtue in itself
and not merely a useful instinct. It has a value for

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338 THE SPIRIT ix

him that is not its survival value ; and because it is
virtue to him, as functional beauty is beauty to the
craftsman, he aims at it for its own sake and becomes
morally expressive as the craftsman becomes aesthetic-
ally expressive. He extends it, from the particular
relation of the mother with her child, to all other
human relations, not because it is use but because it is
virtue. And so it is with fellowship and self-sacrifice,
both to begin with herd instincts. They too are re-
cognised and valued as virtue, not as mere use, and are
practised, not so that the herd may survive — often
they are practised in defiance of the herd — but because
they are virtues. All these virtues are wild virtues ;
and when Christianity sets up the statue of the mother
and her child for worship, it affirms that the universe
is not unkind or unmeaning to the values of man ;
that the highest virtues are to begin with wild virtues,
springing out of nature herself and not imposed by
the arbitrary will of God. In the mother, spirit and
sense are one, and the divine beauty we see in her is
one to our spirit and sense. It has its use ; and it stirs
the heart and brings tears to the eyes, as no mere thing
of use would do.
