5 o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Societies of men are fermenting masses, and as beer has what the Ger- 

 mans call "Oberhefe" and " Unterhefe," so every society that has ex- 

 isted has had its scum at the top and its dregs at the bottom ; and I 

 doubt if any of the " ages of faith " had less scum or less dregs, or 

 even showed a proportionally greater quantity of sound wholesome 

 stuff in the vat. I think it would puzzle Mr. Lilly or any one else to 

 adduce convincing evidence that, at any period of the world's history, 

 there was a more wide-spread sense of social duty, or a greater sense 

 of justice, or of the obligation of mutual help, than in this England of 

 ours. Ah ! but, says Mr. Lilly, these are all products of our Christian 

 inheritance ; when Christian dogmas vanish, virtue will disappear too, 

 and the ancestral ape and tiger will have full play. But there are a 

 good many people who think it obvious that Christianity also inherited 

 a good deal from paganism and from Judaism, and that if the Stoics 

 and the Jews revoked their bequest the moral property of Christianity 

 would realize very little. And, if morality has survived the stripping 

 off of several sets of clothes which have been found to fit badly, why 

 should it not be able to get on very well in the light and handy gar- 

 ments which Science is ready to provide ? 



But this by-the-way. If the diseases of society consist in the weak- 

 ness of its faith in the existence of the God of the theologians, in a 

 future state, and in uncaused volitions, the indication, as the doctors 

 say, is to suppress theology and philosophy, whose bickerings about 

 things of which they know nothing have been the prime cause and 

 continual sustenance of that evil skepticism which is the Nemesis of 

 meddling with the unknowable. 



Cinderella is modestly conscious of her ignorance of these high 

 matters. She lights the fire, sweeps the house, and provides the din- 

 ner, and is rewarded by being told that she is a base creature devoted 

 to low and material interests ; but in her garret she has fairy visions 

 out of the ken of the pair of shrews who are quarreling downstairs. 

 She sees the order which pervades the seeming disorder of the world ; 

 the great drama of evolution with its full share of pity and terror, but 

 also with abundant goodness and beauty, unrolls itself before her 

 eyes ; and she learns in her heart of hearts the lesson, that the founda- 

 tion of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying ; to give 

 up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and re- 

 peating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibili- 

 ties of knowledge. 



She knows that the safety of morality lies neither in the adoption 

 of this or that philosophical speculation, or this or that theological 

 creed, but in a real and living belief in that fixed order of Nature 

 which sends social disorganization upon the track of immorality as 

 surely as it sends physical disease after physical trespasses ; and of 

 that firm and lively faith it is her high mission to be the priestess. — 

 Fortuhjhthj Review. 



