in SCIENCE AND MORALS. 145 



that has existed has had its scum at the top and 

 its dregs at the bottom; hut I doubt if any of the 

 " ages of faith " had less scum or less dregs., or 

 even showed a proportionately greater quantity of 

 sound wholesome stuff in the vat. I think it 

 would puzzle Mr. Lilly, or any one else, to adduce 

 convincing evidence that, at any period of the 

 world's history, there was a more widespread sense 

 of social duty, or a greater sense of justice, or of 

 the obligation of mutual help, than in this Eng- 

 land of ours. Ah! but, says Mr. Lilly, these are 

 all products of our Christian inheritance; when 

 Christian dogmas vanish virtue will disappear too, 

 and the ancestral ape and tiger will have full play. 

 But there are a good many people who think it 

 obvious that Christianity also inherited a good deal 

 from Paganism and from Judaism; and that, if 

 the Stoics and the Jews revoked their bequest, the 

 moral property of Christianity would realise very 

 little. And, if morality has survived the stripping 

 off of several sets of clothes which have been 

 found to fit badly, why should it not be able to 

 get on very well in the' light and handy garments 

 which Science is ready to provide? 



But this by the way. If the diseases of society 

 consist in the weakness of its faith in the existence 

 of the God of the theologians, in a future state, 

 and in uncaused volitions, the indication, as the 

 doctors say, is to suppress Theology and Philoso- 

 phy, whose bickerings about things of which they 

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