234 The Ideal State 



God. If indeed these fail us — then, indeed, it is all 

 ended. National death lies ahead of our once heroic 

 England. Will there, in short, prove to be a recognis- 

 able small nucleus of Invisible Aristoi, fighting for the 

 good cause in their various wisest ways, and never 

 ceasing or slackening till they die ? " And Stead 

 applies this : " The time has come when men and 

 women must work for the salvation of the State with as 

 much zeal and self-sacrifice as they now work for the 

 salvation of the individual. . . . But to save the 

 country from the grasp of demons innumerable, to 

 prevent this Empire or this Republic becoming an 

 incarnate demon of lawless ambition and cruel love of 

 gold, how many men and women are willing to spend 

 even one hour, a month, or a year. . . . The idea that 

 the State needs saving, that the democracy needs 

 educating, and that the problems of government and of 

 reform need careful and laborious study, is foreign to 

 the ideas of our people. The religious side of politics 

 has not yet entered the minds of men. What is wanted 

 is a revival of civic faith, a quickening of spiritual life 

 in the political atmosphere, the inspiring of men and 

 women with the conception of what may be done 

 towards the salvation of the world if they will but 

 bring to bear upon public affairs the same spirit of self- 

 sacrificing labour that so many thousands manifest in 

 the. ordinary drudgery of parochial and evangelical 

 work.^ It may well seem an impossible dream. Can 

 these dry bones live ? Those who ask that question 

 little know the infinite possibilities latent in the heart of 

 man." Here we have the germ of Kidd's theory as to 

 the process at work in our Western civilisation, but 

 Stead had not fully fathomed the lesson of history and 

 the certainty of a further evolution for humanity under 

 the stimulus of the altruistic teachings of Jesus. There 

 is no doubt it was latent in his mind, and it gives much 



