CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS 



belief or practice just inaugurated has its war- 

 rant in time-honoured precedent. The disposi- 

 tion to justify all innovation by means of this 

 artifice is so strongly rooted in human nature 

 that it is likely to be manifested for a long time 

 to come, — probably until the millennial victory 

 of that " pure reason " about which sentimental 

 philosophers have prated, but which hitherto 

 has played a very subordinate part in shaping 

 human affairs. It is this disposition which leads 

 the orthodox, after resisting some scientific her- 

 esy until resistance is no longer possible, to dis- 

 cover all at once that the heresy was really 

 taught by Suarez, or St. Augustine, or Moses. 

 It is this which enables changes to be made 

 " constitutionally,'* or in accordance with a sys- 

 tem of edicts framed in an age when the changes 

 in question could not possibly have been con- 

 templated or provided for. Yet among our- 

 selves, where the dread of novelty is compara- 

 tively slight, there is some difficulty in realizing 

 how all-essential is this kind of artifice in early 

 times. " To this day many semi-civilized races 

 have great difficulty in regarding any arrange- 

 ment as binding and conclusive unless they can 

 also manage to look at it as an inherited usage. 

 Sir Henry Maine, in his last work, gives a 

 most curious case. The English government 

 in India has in many cases made new and great 

 works of irrigation, of which no ancient Indian 

 39 



