276 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CKEED OF SCIENCE. 



Things after their temporaiy wrench would resort to 

 their old grooves, society being the sadder and the wiser, 

 but scarcely the better, from the costly and not bloodless 

 experience. In a word, the best-laid schemes of the 

 socialist must founder on the old rock of human nature, 

 which, alike on its worst as on its best sides, in its innate 

 selfishness as in its deep affections, presents at present, 

 if not for ever, an insurmountable obstacle to the 

 socialist's programme. 



Thus far we are with the defender of society, from 

 the standpoint of evolution, against a social revolution 

 to end in communism. On the other hand, we believe 

 in opposition to the doctrine of Herbert Spencer, that 

 the nature of man is modifiable more quickly than he 

 supposes, at least at particular epochs, in certain direc- 

 tions, and for a considerable time, even though it 

 suffer a relapse. It may be transformed for a time by 

 a great faith and enthusiasm, though it fall away again 

 from the state of grace. It is modifiable at certain 

 epochs if the right spirits appear to modify it ; and 

 under the modification, if widely spread, as at the rise 

 of Christianity and Mahometanism, men are capable of 

 the most extraordinary things, at other times impossible, 

 being possessed of many times their ordinary strength 

 and heart. The nature of men may be so modified with- 

 out being radically changed at such times, that it may 

 suffice to produce the most remarkable change in their 

 future fortunes and in that of the race to follow them. 

 Thus the nature of the Arab was so modified by the 

 tenets of Mahomet, that he became ruler from Bagdad 

 to Cordova; the nature of the French people became 

 so modified by the precursors and actors in their great 

 Revolution, that they combated combined Europe for 

 a generation, and effected an agrarian and political, if 



