The eighteenth-century theories of the social contract have been exposed to much clumsy criticism in our time; in so far as they meant that there is at the back of all historic government an idea of content and co-operation, they were demonstrably right.  But they really were wrong, in so far as they suggested that men had ever aimed at order or ethics directly by a conscious exchange of interests.  Morality did not begin by one man saying to another, “I will not hit you if you do not hit me”; there is no trace of such a transaction.  There is a trace of both men having said, “We must not hit each other in the holy place.”  They gained their morality by guarding their religion.  They did not cultivate courage.  They fought for the shrine, and found they had become courageous.  They did not cultivate cleanliness.  They purified themselves for the altar, and found that they were clean.  The history of the Jews is the only early document known to most Englishmen, and the facts can be judged sufficiently from that.  The Ten Commandments which have been found substantially common to mankind were merely military commands; a code of regimental orders, issued to protect a certain ark across a certain desert.  Anarchy was evil because it endangered the sanctity.  And only when they made a holy day for God did they find they had made a holiday for men.

If it be granted that this primary devotion to a place or thing is a source of creative energy, we can pass on to a very peculiar fact.  Let us reiterate for an instant that the only right optimism is a sort of universal patriotism.  What is the matter with the pessimist?  I think it can be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot.  And what is the matter with the anti-patriot?  I think it can be stated, without undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend.  And what is the matter with the candid friend?  There we strike the rock of real life and immutable human nature.

I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid.  He is keeping something back—­ his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things.  He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help.  This is certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens.  I do not speak (of course) of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and gushing actresses; that is only patriotism speaking plainly.  A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it.  But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him is, I think, what I have suggested:  he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, “I am sorry to say we are ruined,” and is not sorry at all.  And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for