57 
an actual one* let us not forget that Christianity has 
created the Christian Church, thereby realizing an idea 
which philosophers saw only in mental vision. So far the 
testimony of philosophy to Christianity is unmistakable. 
28. To enable us to estimate the full force of this testimony, 
we must briefly investigate the mode in which this mighty 
power acts on mankind. What is the result of repeated acts ? 
Each time an action is performed, its repetition becomes more 
easy. But this is only one portion of the force which it exerts. 
Repeated action impresses a definite character on our moral 
nature. The cause of this lies deep beyond our ken ; but we 
know as fact that the performance of good actions deepens 
the principles of goodness, and the performance of bad ones 
imparts an additional vigour to those of vice. Language also, 
in the manner in which it is learned by man, impresses on him 
the ideas, feelings, and sentiments of the past. In the act of 
learning it, they gradually become incorporated into our moral 
and spiritual being. We think after a particular type, and it 
becomes impressed on our intellect ; we act thus, and similar 
are the results on our hearts. The counteracting power is the 
intellect. It is the only influence through which great changes 
in our moral and spiritual being can be effected. 
29. Nothing has a stronger tendency than the exist- 
ence of this power to preserve a virtuous society in the 
principles of virtue, if such a condition can only be once 
established. It is one also hardly less influential on the 
individual. When he is good and surrounded by good in- 
fluences, it will be a most powerful instrument to preserve 
him in this state. But when the moral atmosphere has 
become vitiated, it becomes the most formidable obstacle to 
the improvement of mankind. What was to be done ? 
Habituation was the philosophic lever, but where was the 
fulcrum? The philosopher had no truth to tell the masses which, 
by any power of evidence, could produce deep conviction in 
their understandings. Under the influence of habit alone, it 
was evident that mankind must go on in their old groove. The 
philosopher saw one way only of preventing this. If an external 
coercive force could be created which could supply a vantage- 
ground for the principle of habituation, something might be 
done. Philosophers might become the magistrates of a new 
state, where the practice of what was unhallowed should be 
proscribed by law, from which unorthodox poets and other 
corrupters of mankind should be excluded, and a training- 
school for virtue instituted. This philosophy proclaimed as 
the only means of regenerating society with which she was 
acquainted. The difficulty was, that whatever it might look 
