'234 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



Especially will this be the case when society is in a permanent 

 state of instability, of which economic perturbations are but a 

 feature. The man who has laid aside reserves from which he 

 can draw, and has thus practically insured his life against disaster, 

 can face the hour of difficulty and trial with courage, if not 

 with serenity. He who is supported by a firm religious belief 

 which dominates every moment of his existence, is not dis- 

 couraged by the loss of material fortune ; for he will deem the 

 welfare of the soul to be higher and more durable than any 

 temporal interests. In the same way, all who have lived and 

 worked for an ideal, whether religious, or social, or political, 

 or professional, which to them is a living reality, find themselves 

 fortified by their belief, and are better protected against the 

 consequences of adversity. But in order that a belief may be 

 able to act thus directly on the individual conscience, that 

 belief must not be peculiar to the individual. It must be a beUef 

 incorporated in a concrete and coherent organisation, of which 

 the individual is a member. In other words, a belief, if it is to 

 exercise sufiicient influence on society, must be a socialised 

 belief. It must be a beHef which enables the individual to reahse 

 his essential solidarity with all those who share the same belief ; 

 consequently, it must strengthen the ties which bind its adherents 

 one to another. In a word, a belief, in order to attain the 

 maximum of its possible effectiveness, must be incarnated in a 

 society of believers. 



In the history of Western civilisation during the last fifteen 

 centuries such a society was realised by the Church. The philo- 

 sophy of the Middle Ages co-ordinated all knowledge in a syn- 

 thesis of which the Church was the centre. For the men of the 

 Middle Ages, Western Europe was everything ; and Western 

 Europe was entirely filled by the Church, with her cathedrals 

 and monasteries, with her lofty ideals and dominating fascina- 

 tion. The Church proved a mighty safeguard against the abuse 

 of wealth and power, and also an invaluable consolation for the 



