Such identity of interest between society and the individual the
moralists of the eighteenth century are never tired of pointing out.
If they are right, and the identity is complete, then sacrifice is
abolished or is only a generous illusion. But these men never quite
succeeded in persuading the English people of their doctrine, at least
they never carried their thought fully over into the common mind.
V
That common mind has always thought of sacrifice in a widely different
way, but in one which renders it still more incomprehensible. Self-
sacrifice it regards as a glorious madness. Though the only act which
ever forces us to bow in reverent awe, it is insolubly mysterious,
irrational, crazy perhaps, but superb. For in it we do not deliberate.
We hear a call, we shut our ears to prudence, and with courageous
blindness as regards damage of our own, we hasten headlong to meet the
needs of others. To reckon heroism, to count, up opposing gains and
losses, balancing them one against another in order clear-sightedly to
act, is to render heroism impossible. Into it there enters an element
of insanity. The sacrificer must feel that he cares nothing for what
is rational, but only for what is holy, for his duty. The rational and
the holy,--in the mind of him who has not been disturbed by theoretic
controversy these two stand in harsh antithesis, and the antithesis
has been approved by important ethical writers of our time.
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