575 
i8So.] Scientific or Natural System. 
the best intentions. But unfortunately “well-meaning” 
people may be unconsciously great harm-producers, since 
there is nothing more detrimental than misdirected energy. 
Indifference is preferable. We want more “ well- acting ” 
people. When we observe, in the recent past, a large num- 
ber of people devising an elaborate system for strangling 
trade, and, without even a feeble consciousness of the im- 
plied irony, naively calling the system “protection,” we 
may be inevitably led to suspeCt that the “ protection ” of 
morals by seCts may be as much a system for strangling 
them as in the case of trade ; and that the emancipation of 
morality from sectarian control may be a necessity for the 
national welfare of the same (but of a far more pressing) 
kind as the freedom of trade. It is a fact, notorious to any 
searchers after truth, that often things which when superfi- 
cially looked at have one aspeCt, when deeply looked at have 
just the reverse aspeCt. This I maintain to be the case with 
the supposed “ protection ” of morals by sectarian doCtrine, 
or, in other words, a little more than a superficial analysis 
will show that the present system actually sets a premium 
on wrong-doing. It would be scarcely reasonable to sup- 
pose that the present sectarian leaders (even if competent 
as a body to do so) should see it to their interests to submit 
this question to such a searching examination as to jeopar- 
dise their own raison d'etre. This task must be left to the 
un-seCtarian or independent students of Nature who are 
more concerned with the foundation of universal tiuths than 
of seCts, but who (regretably) seem not quite to have escaped 
the contagion of the popular idea that unfounded. doCtrine 
can be salutary, or conduce to stability — as if ignorance 
were not far preferable to error. 
While, however, the followers of Science are somewhat 
reluCtant to come forward, under the influence of this idea, 
the “ well-meaning ” people are having it all their own way, 
and, with that overweening confidence invariably character- 
istic of incapacity, are issuing by traCt and volume the 
literature called “ moral ” by the cartload, — for home and 
export, — to an extent not even feebly imitated by any other 
country in Europe.* It may be a fair question for. the inde- 
pendent pioneers of knowledge, how long they intend to 
incur the responsibility of leaving practically the entire 
* Because of the notorious fadt that our insular position tends to restrift the 
immense benefits of the free interchange and conflict of ideas enjoyed by Con- 
tinental nations, which is the surest safeguard for truth, we ought surely to be 
all the more careful and suspicious lest any errors may crystallise in our midst. 
Of course the fadt that an error is thought to be good is not a remarkable thing, 
because that may be the chief reason why it is an error (or why it rs an evil). 
VOL. II. (THIRD SERIES). 2 R 
