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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



chinery? what are railroads but machinery ? what is wealth hut machinery? 

 what are religious organizations hut machinery? " ' 



And in pursuance of this conception he instances the desire to get 

 Church-rates abolished and certain restrictions on marriage removed, 

 as proving undue belief in machinery among Dissenters; while his 

 own disbelief in machinery he considers proved by wishing for stronger 

 governmental restraints, 2 by lauding the supervision of an Academy, 

 and by upholding a Church Establishment. I must leave unconsidered 

 the question whether an Academy, if we had one, would authorize this 

 iise of language, which makes it seem that voluntary religious agency 

 is machinery and that compulsory religious agency is not machinery. 

 I must pass over, too, Mr. Arnold's comparision of Ecclesiasticism and 

 Nonconformity in respect of the men they have produced. Nor have 

 I space to examine what he says about the mental attitudes of the 

 two. It must suffice to say that, were the occasion fit, it might be 

 6hown that his endeavor " to see the object as in itself it really is " has 

 not succeeded much better in this case than in the cases above dealt 

 with. Here I must limit myself to a single criticism. 



The trait which in Mr. Arnold's view of Nonconformity seems to me 

 most remarkable is, that in breadth it so little transcends the view of 

 the Nonconformists themselves. The two views greatly differ in one 

 respect antipathy replaces sympathy; but the two views are not 

 widely unlike in extension. Avoiding that provincialism of thought 

 which he says characterizes Dissenters, I should have expected Mr. 

 Arnold to estimate Dissent, not under its local and temporary aspect, 

 but under its general aspect as a factor in all societies at all times. 

 Though the Nonconformists themselves think of Nonconformity as a 

 phase of Protestantism in England, Mr. Arnold's studies of other na- 

 tions, other times, and other creeds, would, I should have thought, 

 have led him to regard Nonconformity as a universal power in socie- 

 ties, which has in our time and country its particular embodiment, but 

 which is to be understood only when contemplated in all its other em- 

 bodiments. The thing is one in spirit and tendency, whether shown 

 among the Jews, or the Greeks whether in Catholic Europe, or in 

 Protestant England. Wherever there is disagreement with a current 

 belief, no matter what its nature, there is Nonconformity. The open 

 expression of difference, and avowed opposition to that which is au- 

 thoritatively established, constitutes Dissent, whether the religion be 

 Pagan or Christian, Monotheistic or Polytheistic. The relative atti- 

 tudes of the dissenter and of those in power are essentially the same 

 in all cases ; and in all cases lead to persecution and vituperation. 

 The Greeks who poisoned Socrates were moved by just the same 

 sentiment as the Catholics who burnt Cranmer, and the Protestant 

 Churchmen who imprisoned Bunyan and pelted Wesley. And, while 

 the manifestations of feeling are essentially the same, while the accom- 



1 " Culture and Anarchy," p. 16. * Ibid., pp. 130-140. 



