i 4 THE WORKING FAITH OF 



pose into what they believe to be unintelligible, the first 

 task of the social reformer is to confront this doubt which 

 paralyses social theory and makes the advocacy of far- 

 reaching social enterprises the monopoly of the rash. 



A full discussion of the sceptic's objections would lead 

 us very far afield, and I must spare you that enterprise. 

 A shorter way, and possibly enough a more secure way at 

 present, would be to appeal from the social theory of the 

 sceptic to his own social life : for, like other men, he is 

 sometimes better than his creed, and apt to be more signifi- 

 cant than he knows. It seems to me that in all his 

 intercourse with his fellows which constitutes his social 

 life, which really is his whole life he presumes the reality 

 of that order and uniformity which he denies in theory. 

 He draws inferences, as Hume has pointed out, concerning 

 his own and his neighbours' actions; and he cannot help 

 doing so if he is to act at all. In total ignorance of 

 consequences, under the conviction that there is utter dis- 

 continuity between motive, will, and act, and that there 

 exists the equal possibility of any or of no results, he 

 would act at his peril, or rather he would not dare to act, 

 nor have any reason for either acting or not acting. In 

 a society where there were no permanences, there would 

 be no expectations ; no pact or promise could be either 

 broken or kept ; for where everything is unstable or incal- 

 culable, no pact or promise could be made. And hence 

 the sceptic's argument destroys the object it deals with : 

 for, to show that there are no obligations, is to show that 

 there is no human society, which is just a system of 

 obligations. 



I find in the denial of the laws of the social order that 

 singular lack of imagination which is characteristic_of 



