The positivists do not postulate any new elements in human nature, but the reduction of some, elimination of others, and the magnifying of others.

And they actually find cases where this process has been effected.

But they quite forget the circumstances that have made such an event possible.

They forget that in their very nature they have been altogether exceptional and transitory; and that it is impossible to construct a Utopia in which they shall exist at all.

We can, for instance, no doubt point to Leonidas and the three hundred as specimens of what human heroism can rise to; and we can point to the Stoics as specimens of human self-control.