96 Contemporary Evolution. 



If, instead of paganism, civicism gains the day (the 

 second of the three systems now struggling for sway), 

 it is difficult to see how the latter can have any positive 

 religious effect whatever. The merely negative action of 

 depriving all religions of any State support is but the 

 forming of "a fair field and no favour/' where success 

 must depend on quite other than political causes. 



Such, at least, is the conclusion which seems forced 

 on us at a first glance, but a satisfactory conclusion can- 

 not be arrived at without some further examination. 



There are, however, not a few persons who apprehend 

 that instead of our soon seeing an orderly system of 

 civic freedom, European society is simply tending to 

 disintegration and anarchy. Now, of course, a lapse into 

 utter barbarism would necessarily carry with it a destruc- 

 tion of Christianity, since Christianity supposes the exist- 

 ence of a certain degree of natural social evolution ; such, 

 e.g., as that of "the family " an institution at which 

 the hostile efforts of the most " advanced " reformers 

 are directly aimed. 



It is certainly conceivable that at least such anarchy 

 as lately arose in parts of Spain, and as prevailed for a 

 short time in Paris, might extend itself over a much wider 

 area. Not many of those who enjoyed the most refined 

 salons of the French capital under Louis XV. would 

 have believed it possible that all France before the cen- 

 tury ended could have presented the spectacle that it 



