to the public, and warning them against teaching which they
believed to be insidious and even immoral. I honour them for doing
this, and I applaud them, especially if they did violence to their
own feelings of courtesy and urbanity in doing so. Then there were
some good-natured reviewers who practically said that the book was
simply a collection of amiable platitudes; but that if the public
liked to read such stuff, they were quite at liberty to do so. I
admire these reviewers for a different reason, partly for their
tolerant permission to the public to read what they choose, and
still more because I like to think that there are so many
intelligent people in the world who are wearisomely familiar with
ideas which have only slowly and gradually dawned upon myself. I
have no intention of trying to refute or convince my critics, and I
beg them with all my heart to say what they think about my books,
because only by the frank interchange of ideas can we arrive at the
truth.

But what I am going to try to do in this chapter is to examine the
theory by virtue of which my book is condemned, and I am going to
try to give the fullest weight to the considerations urged against
it. I am sure there is something in what the critics say, but I
believe that where we differ is in this. The critics who disapprove
of my book seem to me to think that all men are cast in the same
mould, and that the principles which hold good for some necessarily
hold good for all. What I like best about their criticisms is that
they are made in a spirit of moral earnestness and ethical
seriousness. I am a serious man myself, and I rejoice to see others
serious. The point of view which they seem to recommend is the
point of view of a certain kind of practical strenuousness, the
gospel of push, if I may so call it. They seem to hold that people