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CONSCIENCE &
FANATICISM
CONSCIENCE &
FANATICISM
AN ESSAY ON MORAL VALUES
BY
GEORGE PITT-RIVERS
"Æquam memento servare mentem"
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
London: William Heinemann, 1919
PREFACE
In presenting this little volume to the public I am fully conscious ofmy presumption in introducing my personal views in a region where manyhundreds of better qualified writers have devoted their best efforts.Since, however, no apology can justify a profitless task, if such it be,or add to its utility, if indeed it possesses any, I will not attempt tomake one.
If I have contributed in ever so slight a degree towards anunderstanding of the mental state or attitude we call fanaticism, forthe purpose of guarding against the catastrophes it begets, I shall haveachieved my purpose. It is unfortunately inevitable that a discussionwhich involves current opinions and beliefs must necessarily encounterstrong prejudices and opposition, but it is less on this account thatthis little work is likely to fail than for the reason to which Humeattributed the failure which attended the publication of his "Treatiseof Human Nature," which he described as his guilt "of a very usualindiscretion, in going to the press too early." A circumstance whichprevented that "unfortunate literary attempt from reaching suchdistinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots."[1]
Needless to say, I have relied for my interpretation of human notionsand ideas, and the conduct which results from them, very largely uponthe works of past and contemporary writers; and my indebtedness to thosewith whom I differ no less than those with whom I agree is but veryinadequately acknowledged in my references to the works of some of them.
The earlier portions of the essay are devoted chiefly to an examinationof moral ideas, the latter portions more exclusively to the facts ofnature and of mind from which they derive their meaning. Throughout Ihave attempted to keep the argument as free as possible from the thinair of philosophica