insanity or crime. The fact that the insanity may be privileged,
as Savonarola's was up to the point of wrecking the social life of
Florence, does not alter the case. We always hesitate to treat a
dangerously good man as a lunatic because he may turn out to be a
prophet in the true sense: that is, a man of exceptional sanity
who is in the right when we are in the wrong. However necessary it
may have been to get rid of Savonarola, it was foolish to poison
Socrates and burn St. Joan of Arc. But it is none the less
necessary to take a firm stand against the monstrous proposition
that because certain attitudes and sentiments may be heroic and
admirable at some momentous crisis, they should or can be
maintained at the same pitch continuously through life. A life
spent in prayer and alms giving is really as insane as a life
spent in cursing and picking pockets: the effect of everybody
doing it would be equally disastrous. The superstitious tolerance
so long accorded to monks and nuns is inevitably giving way to a
very general and very natural practice of confiscating their
retreats and expelling them from their country, with the result
that they come to England and Ireland, where they are partly
unnoticed and partly encouraged because they conduct technical
schools and teach our girls softer speech and gentler manners than
our comparatively ruffianly elementary teachers. But they are
still full of the notion that because it is possible for men to
attain the summit of Mont Blanc and stay there for an hour, it is
possible for them to live there. Children are punished and scolded
for not living there; and adults take serious offence if it is not
assumed that they live there.

As a matter of fact, ethical strain is just as bad for us as
physical strain. It is desirable that the normal pitch of conduct