and when at last the life of every day is summed up, "to leave the
world better than they found it." And it is from that most excellent
expression I would start, or rather from a sort of amplified
restatement of that expression--outside the province of religious
discussion altogether.

A man who will build on that expression _as his foundation_ in
political and social matters, has at least the possibility of agreement
in the scheme of action these papers will unfold. For though we
theorize it is at action that our speculations will aim. They will take
the shape of an organized political and social doctrine. It will be
convenient to give this doctrine a name, and for reasons that will be
clear enough to those who have read my book _Anticipations_ this
doctrine will be spoken of throughout as "New Republicanism," the
doctrine of the New Republic.

The central conception of this New Republicanism as it has shaped
itself in my mind, lies in attaching pre-eminent importance to certain
aspects of human life, and in subordinating systematically and always,
all other considerations to these cardinal aspects. It begins with a
way of looking at life. It insists upon that way, it will regard no
human concern at all except in that way. And the way, putting the thing
as compactly as possible, is to reject and set aside all abstract,
refined, and intellectualized ideas as starting propositions, such
ideas as Right, Liberty, Happiness, Duty or Beauty, and to hold fast to
the assertion of the fundamental nature of life as a tissue and
succession of births. These other things may be important, they may be
profoundly important, but they are not primary. We cannot build upon
any one of them and get a structure that will comprehend all the
aspects of life.