EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



of social development in which each little soci- 

 ety was at war with every other, and in which, 

 accordingly, it was impossible to bring a given 

 set of opinions into free contact with another 

 set, within the limits of one and the same soci- 

 ety. As men have gradually been brought to- 

 gether into great and complex societies, as their 

 opinions have been brought more and more 

 into the focus of a common point of compari- 

 son, this rigidity of the mental processes so 

 like the rigidity of the mental processes of the 

 lower animals has gradually yielded to cir- 

 cumstances such as favour flexibility. With the 

 case of the savage or the woman who comes to 

 scrub the floor, contrast the case of the scien- 

 tific philosopher, whose opinions are slowly 

 formed after a long and careful weighing of con- 

 flicting evidences, and when once formed are 

 held subject to perpetual revision and modifica- 

 tion. On considering these two contrasted cases, 

 it becomes obvious how the aggregation of men 

 into great and complex societies, bringing with 

 it increased variety of experience and increased 

 knowledge of the manifold liability to error, has 

 operated to destroy the confident assumption of 

 infallibility which characterizes the bigot and the 

 savage. 



We have now made out, I think, a very fair 

 explanation of the way in which the persecuting 

 spirit has been affected by the general progress 

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