10 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 



differences as to the power to which this subordination is 

 due ; there are wide differences as to the motive for this sub- 

 ordination; there are wide differences as to its extent; but 

 that there must be some subordination all are agreed. From 

 the oldest and rudest idea of allegiance, down to the most 

 advanced political theory of our own day, there is on this 

 point complete unanimity. Though, between the savage 

 who conceives his life and property to be at the absolute dis- 

 posal of his chief, and the anarchist who denies the right of 

 any government, autocratic or democratic, to trench upon 

 his individual freedom, there seems at first sight an entire 

 and irreconcilable antagonism; yet ultimate analysis dis- 

 closes in them this fundamental community of opinion; 

 that there are limits which individual actions may not trans- 

 gress — limits which the one regards as originating in the 

 king's will, and which the other regards as deducible from 

 the equal claims of fellow-citizens. 



It may perhaps at first sight seem that we here reach a 

 very unimportant conclusion; namely, that a certain tacit 

 assumption is equally implied in all these conflicting politi- 

 cal creeds — an assumption which is indeed of self-evident 

 validity. The question, however, is not the value or nov- 

 elty of the particular truth in this case arrived at. My aim 

 has been to exhibit the more general truth, which we are apt 

 to overlook, that between the most opposite beliefs there is 

 usually something in common, — something taken for 

 granted by each; and that this something, if not to be set 

 down as an unquestionable verity, may yet be considered to 

 have the highest degree of probability. A postulate which, 

 like the one above instanced, is not consciously asserted but 

 unconsciously involved; and which is unconsciously in- 

 volved not by one man or body of men, but by numerous 

 bodies of men who diverge in countless ways and degrees in 

 the rest of their beliefs ; has a warrant far transcending any 

 that can be usually shown. And when, as in this case, the 

 postulate is abstract — is not based on some one concrete ex- 



