Second, there is the common bond of tradition, and all our debt to the
past, which is a fact equally independent of our willingness to
acknowledge it. Third, there is the natural and inevitable fact of man's
necessity for reverencing some one above him. Obedience and reverence
are forthcoming, whenever man is in the presence of what he _ought_ to
reverence, and so hero-worship is secure.
These three bonds of social reality are inseparable from one another.
The first, the brotherhood of man, has often been used as the watchword
of a false independence. It is only possible on the condition of
reverence and obedience for that which is higher than oneself, either in
the past or the present. "Suspicion of 'Servility,' of reverence for
Superiors, the very dog-leech is anxious to disavow. Fools! Were your
Superiors worthy to govern, and you worthy to obey, reverence for them
were even your only possible freedom." These three, then, are the social
realities, and all other social distinctions and conventionalities are
but clothes, to be replaced or thrown away at need.
But there is a fourth bond of social reality--the greatest and most
powerful of all.
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