264 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 



emerge, and most things would settle into their old 

 grooves and forms ; even the old social maladies, to cure 

 which was the aim of all this destruction, would repro- 

 duce themselves in equal or probably increased amount, 

 though possibly affecting different persons and sections 

 of society. After temporary anarchy, things would 

 revert of necessity to the pre-revolutionary state, because 

 average human nature, from which they sprang and of 

 which they were the will and expression, remains the 

 same. You have not touched the real root of the evils 

 complained of, by these supposed revolutions. The 

 French nation did not essentially change its social 

 structure by the various revolutions from 1789' to 1871, 

 because the French character remained essentially the 

 same, thus reproducing continually the same or similar 

 evils.* 



But, interrupts the socialist, though the French 

 people did not perhaps alter what you call their social 

 structure, did they not succeed in altering their material 

 fortunes ? Did they not alter permanently the relation 

 of classes to each other, almost annihilating the power 

 of the nobility, and redistributing their property amongst 

 the nation ? In short, the French got the strength in 

 the revolutionary fever to change, and change perma- 

 nently for the better, the fortunes of the majority of the 

 people; they effected a revolution in society, if not in 

 the political and social structure according to your 

 metaphor ; and such a change, only more thoroughly and 

 widely accomplished and accompanied by safeguards to 

 prevent a possible return to the old system, is pre- 

 cisely the general aim and goal of the socialist's en- 

 deavours. A man, we grant, cannot change the structure 

 of his body, nor yet of his mind, but he may at critical 



* See Spencer's Study of Sociology, ch. vii. p. 121. 



