THE GREATEST LIFE.* How are we to attain to the
highest life ? Dr. Leighton's , book is written to answer this question, and contains some interesting theories of education and heredity. All his argu- ments centre round the word "immunity." "The highest possibility for man is to possess immunity to all that is detrimental to his perfect development or destructive to his life." Vice in all its forms be looks upon as a species of disease. Tendencies towards moral ill-health are no doubt inherited, but these tendencies can be so modified by environ- ment as to make it possible for ninety-nine men in every hundred to lead a really good life,—i.e., to conform to "the system of social obligations and duties which obtains in his community." Education is a matter of vast importance, Dr. Leighton would have his readers remember, especially moral education. The essential for healthy moral growth is an atmosphere of complete sincerity. "Most children are naturally truthful—that is, they have a great power of resist- ance to this particular form of mental immorality. But the time inevitably comes when the temptation to tell a lie is strong, the infection highly virulent."
Religion is, our author believes, one of the most potent factors in the attainment of moral immunity. "Christianity claims that if the advice of its Founder be followed, it will be found a simple and certain prophylactic from sin, or at any rate from its most serious results, and that it is so because of
The Greatest Life, By Gerald Leighton, M.D. Edin., F.B.S. Edin. Loudon Duckworth end Co. Os. not) an immunity conferred which will save a soul, even if it be in extremis." Dr. Leighton discusses "the conditions laid down by Christ" under which this immunity can be obtained. Our Lord, according to Dr. Leighton, demands one of two alterna- tives,—either "the receptive mind," that is, "the attitude of faith possessed by the child-mind," or else "an experimental process," in other words, determined obedience to certain principles. The first, for those capable of suddenly assuming the childlike attitude, will produce instant change of character, an immunity to temptation which is not always lasting, but can be renewed; the other, a slow change of which the result is certain and permanent.
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