398 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



seen many small countries come together in their 

 own lifetime, while in America a gigantic attempt at 

 disruption has completely failed. Success will, of course, 

 sometimes attend disruption, but on the whole the 

 balance inclines strongly in favour of aggregation and 

 homogeneity ; analogy points in the direction of sup- 

 posing that the great civilized nations of Europe, as they 

 are the coalition of subordinate provinces, so must 

 coalesce themselves also to form a larger, but single 

 empire. Wars will then cease, and surely anything 

 that seems likely to tend towards so desirable an end 

 deserves respectful consideration. 



The Church of Eome is essentially a unifier. It is a 

 great thing that nations should have so much in common 

 as the acknowledgment of the same tribunal for the 

 settlement of spiritual and religious questions, and there 

 is no head under which Christendom can unite with as 

 little disturbance as under Home. Nothing more tends 

 to keep men apart than religious differences ; this 

 certainly ought not to be the case, but it no less 

 certainly is, and therefore we should strain many 

 points and subordinate our private judgment to a very 

 considerable extent if called upon to do so. A man, 

 under these circumstances, is right in saying he believes 

 in much that he does not believe in. Nevertheless 

 there are limits to this, and the Church of Eome requires 

 more of us at present than we can by any means bring 

 ourselves into assenting to. 



It may be asked, Why have a Church at all ? Why 

 not unite in community of negation rather than of asser- 

 tion? When I wrote 'Evolution, Old and New/ three 



