What is to be said in this connection of
the apologetic attitude taken in commending sports and the
sporting character will therefore apply, with a suitable change
in phraseology, to the apologies offered in behalf of these
other, related elements of our social heritage.
There is a feeling -- usually vague and not commonly avowed in so
many words by the apologist himself, but ordinarily
perceptible in the manner of his discourse -- that these sports,
as well as the general range of predaceous impulses and habits of
thought which underlie the sporting character, do not altogether
commend themselves to common sense. "As to the majority of
murderers, they are very incorrect characters." This aphorism
offers a valuation of the predaceous temperament, and of the
disciplinary effects of its overt expression and exercise, as
seen from the moralist's point of view. As such it affords an
indication of what is the deliverance of the sober sense of
mature men as to the degree of availability of the predatory
habit of mind for the purposes of the collective life. It is felt
that the presumption is against any activity which involves
habituation to the predatory attitude, and that the burden of
proof lies with those who speak for the rehabilitation of the
predaceous temper and for the practices which strengthen it.
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