84 Contemporary Evolution. 



degrading despotism than Europe has seen since the 

 downfall of the pagan Caesars. 



No doubt many honest men favour the Prussian Church 

 Laws because they see that they favour the first ten- 

 dency, and because they do not perceive how they are 

 really inspired by the second or pagan spirit. 



This confusion is favoured by those who (however 

 justly they may assert their legal or their treaty rights) 

 oppose the laws by protests in favour of the " liberty of 

 the Church/' " Christian marriage," the " rights of the 

 bishops," etc. An opposition necessarily futile (unless the 

 whole modern movement can be reversed or arrested), 

 because " civicism " knows nothing of " the Church," or 

 " Christianity," or " bishops," as such (only recognising 

 individual citizens and their rights against reciprocal 

 encroachment), while " paganism " hates alj three. 



On the other hand, many of those who advocate the 

 new laws out of a spirit of opposition to medisevalism, 

 forget, or do not understand, that they are trampling on 

 the most fundamental rights of their fellow-citizens, and 

 erecting a tyranny which has much less to say in its de- 

 fence, and is indefinitely more autocratic in its principles 

 than the old system they, in the spirit of their age, oppose. 



According to the spirit of modern freedom, indivi- 

 duals are perfectly free with the limitations before 

 mentioned to form themselves into associations in which 

 their mutual relations are regulated by mutual consent, 



