ILLUSTRATIONS AND CRITICISMS 



the relations of man to his Creator ; but after 

 all he remains a savage still, in feelings and in 

 habits of thought, bloodthirsty, treacherous, and 

 superstitious, with a keen appetite for human 

 flesh. Or suppose you could resuscitate a me- 

 diaeval baron — one of those innumerable free- 

 booters who lived entrenched in the romantic 

 castles of the Rhine and levied blackmail on 

 every luckless wayfarer — suppose you could 

 resuscitate such a man, and were to endeavour 

 to expound to him in the simplest language 

 a few of the most self-evident modern axioms 

 concerning political rights and the interdepend- 

 ence of human interests : would he understand 

 you ? By no means. So vast would be the dif- 

 ference in mental habit, that in all probability 

 he could not even argue with you. " Hence " 

 — to continue with Mr. Spencer — "though 

 advanced ideas when once established act upon 

 society and aid its further advance ; yet the es- 

 tablishment of such ideas depends on the fitness 

 of the society for receiving them. Practically, 

 the popular character and the social state deter- 

 mine what ideas shall be current ; instead of 

 the current ideas determining the social state 

 and the character. The modification of men's 

 moral natures, caused by the continuous disci- 

 pline of social life, is therefore the chief proxi- 

 mate cause of social progress." 



It is worthy of note that Comte, in his later 



357 



