THE TRANSITION OF INSTITUTIONS. 157 



ting commences show a nominal belief in an immediate divine guid- 

 ance, the votes with which the sitting ends, given in pursuance of rea- 

 sons which the speeches assign, show us a real belief that the effects 

 will be determined by the agencies set to work. 



Still it is clear that the old conception, while it qualifies the new 

 but little in the regulating of actions, qualifies it very much in the for- 

 mation of theories. There can be no complete acceptance of Sociology 

 as a science so long as the belief in a social order not conforming to 

 natural law survives. Hence, as already said, considerations touching 

 the study of Sociology, not very influential even over the few who rec- 

 ognize a Social Science, can have scarcely any effects on the great 

 mass to whom a Social Science is an incredibility. 



I do not mean that this prevailing imperviousness to scientific con- 

 ceptions of social phenomena is to be regretted. As implied in a fore- 

 going paragraph, it is part of the required adjustment between existing 

 opinions and the forms of social life at present requisite. With a given 

 phase of human character there must, to maintain equilibrium, go an 

 adapted class of institutions, and a set of thoughts and sentiments in 

 tolerable harmony with those institutions. Hence, it is not to be 

 wished that, with the average human nature we now have, there should 

 be a wide acceptance of views natural only to a more highly-developed 

 social state, and to the improved type of citizen accompanying such a 

 state. The desirable thing is, that a growth of ideas and feelings tend- 

 ing to produce modification shall be joined with a continuance of ideas 

 and feelings tending to preserve stability. And it is one of our satis- 

 factory social traits, exhibited in a degree never before paralleled, that 

 along with a mental progress which brings about considerable changes, 

 there is a devotion of thought and energy to the maintenance of exist- 

 ing arrangements, and creeds, and sentiments — an energy suflicient 

 even to reinvigorate some of the old forms and beliefs that were de- 

 caying. When, therefore, a distinguished statesman, anxious for hu- 

 man welfare as he ever shows himself to be, and holding that the de- 

 fense of established beliefs must not be left exclusively to its "standing 

 army " of " priests and ministers of religion," undertakes to combat 

 opinions at variance with a creed he thinks essential, the occurrence 

 may be taken as adding another to the many signs of a healthful con- 

 dition of society. That, in our day, one in Mr. Gladstone's position 

 should think as he does, seems to me very desirable. That we should 

 have for our working-king one in whom a purely-scientific conception 

 of things had become dominant, and who was thus out of harmony 

 with our present social state, would probably be detrimental, and 

 might be disastrous. 



For it cannot be too emphatically asserted that this policy of com- 

 promise, alike in institutions, in actions, and in beliefs, which especial- 

 ly characterizes English life, is a policy essential to a society going 



