Unfortunately for this smug endeavour to view the universe as the incarnation of the commonplace, the impact of aesthetic, religious and moral notions is inescapable. They are the disrupting and the energising forces of civilisation. They force mankind upwards and downwards. When their vigour abates, a slow mild decay ensues. Then new ideals arise, bringing in their train a rise in the energy of social behaviour.
Moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness.
Morality consists in the aims at the ideal, and at its lowest it concerns the prevention of re-lapse to lower levels. Thus stagnation is the deadly foe of morality. Yet in human society the champions of morality are on the whole the fierce opponents of new ideas. As society is now constituted a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the Gospels would mean sudden death. Moral codes have suffered from the exaggerated claims made for them.