What is here said of
the sporting propensity is likewise pertinent to sundry
reflections presently to be made in this connection on what would
colloquially be known as the religious life.
The last paragraph incidentally touches upon the fact that
everyday speech can scarcely be employed in discussing this class
of aptitudes and activities without implying deprecation or
apology. The fact is significant as showing the habitual attitude
of the dispassionate common man toward the propensities which
express themselves in sports and in exploit generally. And this
is perhaps as convenient a place as any to discuss that undertone
of deprecation which runs through all the voluminous discourse in
defense or in laudation of athletic sports, as well as of other
activities of a predominantly predatory character. The same
apologetic frame of mind is at least beginning to be observable
in the spokesmen of most other institutions handed down from the
barbarian phase of life. Among these archaic institutions which
are felt to need apology are comprised, with others, the entire
existing system of the distribution of wealth, together with the
resulting class distinction of status; all or nearly all forms of
consumption that come under the head of conspicuous waste; the
status of women under the patriarchal system; and many features
of the traditional creeds and devout observances, especially the
exoteric expressions of the creed and the naive apprehension of
received observances.
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