ANALOGY — TRUE AND FALSE 49 



ual, just as vast bodies of water respond to attrac- 

 tions and planetary perturbations that do not affect 

 the lesser bodies. Men kindle one another as do fire- 

 brands, and beget a collective heat and an enthusi- 

 asm that tyrannize over the individual purposes and 

 wills. We say things are in the air, that a spirit is 

 abroad ; that is, that influences are at work above 

 the wills and below the consciousness of the people. 

 There are changes or movements in the world and 

 in the communities that seem strictly analogous to 

 drifting ; it is as when a ship is carried out of its 

 course by unsuspected currents, or as when arctic, 

 explorers, with their faces set northward, are uncon- 

 sciously carried in the opposite direction by the ice 

 floe beneath them. The spirit of the age, or the 

 time-spirit, is always at work, and takes us with 

 it, whether we know it or not. For instance, the 

 whole religious world is now drifting away from the 

 old theology, and drifting faster than we suspect. 

 Certain zealots have their faces very strongly set 

 against it, but, like Commodore Parry on the ice 

 floe, they are going south faster than their efforts are 

 carrying them north. Indeed, the whole sentiment 

 of the race is moving into a more genial and tem- 

 perate theological climate, away from purgatorial 

 fires rather than toward them. 



The political sentiment of a country also drifts. 

 That of our own may be said to have been drifting 

 for some time now in the direction of freer commer- 

 cial intercourse with other nations. 



A man's life may stagnate as literally as water may 



