26 THE WORKING FAITH OF 



not been applied to its solution. The work that remains 

 to be done in this respect is very great. But still it seems 

 to me to lie, in by far the greater part, along the lines of 

 the old endeavour. The effective reformer, even in these 

 comparatively neglected fields, will, in the first instance at 

 least, realise the value of the work already done, and seek 

 simply to continue it. He must find his fulcrum for 

 raising society in things as they are. He must live within 

 the world if he is to make it better, and arm himself with 

 its powers in order to conquer it. 



Few things have entailed such waste of ethical force, 

 which is man's very life-blood, as the neglect of this simple 

 practical maxim. It is exemplified in many ways. We 

 seek, for instance, to engraft straightway the elevated 

 thoughts of the Christian religion upon crude and bar- 

 barous civilisations ; or we would introduce amongst 

 ourselves ideal ways of life for which neither our disposi- 

 tion nor our habits nor our institutions are prepared. In 

 doing so we ignore the most elementary and cardinal of 

 all the truths we know of human experience, namely, that 

 it must be continuous ; that neither in theory nor in 

 practice can anything new be introduced except that which 

 the old can assimilate. Morality, whether personal or 

 social, can be acquired only step by step. There is a scale 

 of ascending ideals along which, in due order, man must 

 travel to the Good. As well expect to solve the problems 

 of higher mathematics before we have learnt to add or 

 subtract, as hope to attain, or even to recognise, great 

 ideals when character is crude or social life rudimentary. 

 Human history seems, no doubt, to present society as 

 subject to sudden conversions ; and history verily has its 

 greater moods. But these conversions are never so 



