THE RECONCILIATION. 121 



certain that disastrous results would ensue from the removal 

 of those strong and distinct motives which the current belief 

 supplies. Even as it is, those who relinquish the faith in 

 which they have been brought up, for this most abstract 

 faith in which Science and Religion unite, may not uncom- 

 monly fail to act up to their convictions. Left to their or- 

 ganic morality, enforced only by general reasonings imper- 

 fectly wrought out and difficult to keep before the mind, 

 their defects of nature will often come out more- strongly 

 than they would have done under their previous creed. The 

 substituted creed can become adequately operative only 

 when it becomes, like the present one, an element in early 

 education, and has the support of a strong social sanction. 

 Nor will men be quite ready for it until, through the con- 

 tinuance of a discipline which has already partially moulded 

 them to the conditions of social existence, they are com- 

 pletely moulded to those conditions. 



We must therefore recognize the resistance to a change 

 of theological opinion, as in great measure salutary. It is 

 not simply that strong and deep-rooted feelings are neces- 

 sarily excited to antagonism — it is not simply that the high- 

 est moral sentiments join in the condemnation of a change 

 which seems to undermine their authority; but it is that a 

 real adaptation exists between an established belief and the 

 natures of those who defend it ; and that the tenacity of the 

 defence measures the completeness of the adaptation. 

 Forms of religion, like forms of government, must be fit for 

 those who live under them; and in the one case as in the 

 other, that form which is fittest is that for which there is an 

 instinctive preference. As certainly as a barbarous race 

 needs a harsh terrestrial rule, and habitually shows attach- 

 ment to a despotism capable of the necessary rigour ; so cer- 

 tainly does such a race need a belief in a celestial rule that 

 is similarly harsh, and habitually shows attachment to such 

 a belief. And just in the same way that the sudden substi- 

 tution of free institutions for tvrannical ones, is sure to be 

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