6 THE WORKING FAITH OF 



the Church can save society, and only by saving society 

 can it save itself. But the Church can do this by no 

 mere warmth of feeling or emotional enthusiasm, although 

 it can do nothing without them. These have done harm 

 in the past, they are doing harm to-day, and they will do 

 harm to-morrow, so far as there goes not with them some 

 comprehension of the conditions under which human 

 character is formed. And of all these conditions, there 

 are none which signify so much for men as those which 

 bind them together in society. What we call ' ' the social 

 environment " envelopes individual character more closely 

 than aught else. It penetrates man's life more intimately, 

 and sustains it more vitally than any physical circumstance, 

 which, indeed, can be interpreted by him only through its 

 medium. It is a power within man as well as without 

 him. And no one will deny that to understand this social 

 environment is a condition of its proper use, or that in 

 seeking to do so those who have come to serve man are 

 engaged in their proper business. It is the most urgent 

 practical task of the day for good men. 



I wish I could tell you how to go about it. But the 

 problems of social life are so complex, and the principles 

 that should contain their solution are so uncertain and 

 obscure, as to make the attitude of a teacher in this field 

 inept and absurd. Where no one knows, all must inquire, 

 if the subject of inquiry is sufficiently important. And 

 the field of social life is emphatically, if not uniquely, one 

 in which the inquiry must be conducted by many minds. 

 Plato tells us that justice and reverence, the virtues on 

 which human society rests, have been differently dis- 

 tributed amongst men from the arts. Skill in the latter 

 has been given only to the favoured few, "one skilled 



