iples themselves. Nor is the
process of deteriorating conviction confined to the greater or noisier
transactions of nations. It is impossible that it should be so. That
process is due to causes which affect the mental temper an a whole, and
pour round us an atmosphere that enervates our judgment from end to end,
not more in politics than in morality, and not more in morality than in
philosophy, in art, and in religion. Perhaps this tendency never showed
itself more offensively than when the most important newspaper in the
country criticised our great naturalist's scientific speculations as to
the descent of man, from the point of view of property, intelligence,
and a stake in the country, and severely censured him for revealing his
particular zoological conclusions to the general public, at a moment
when the sky of Paris was red with the incendiary flames of the Commune.
It would be hard to reduce the transformation of all truth into a
subordinate department of daily politics, to a more gross and unseemly
absurdity.

The consequences of such a transformation, of putting immediate social
convenience in the first place, and respect for truth in the second, are
seen, as we have said, in a distinct and unmistakable lowering of the
level of national life; a slack and lethargic quality about public
opinion; a growing predominance of material, temporary, and selfish
aims, over those which are generous, far-reaching, and spiritual; a
deadly weakening of intellectual conclusiveness, and clear-shining moral
illumination, and, lastly, of a certain stoutness of self-respect for
which England was once especially famous. A plain categorical
proposition is becoming less and less credible to average minds. Or at
least the slovenly willingness to hold two directly contradictory
propositions at one and the same time is becoming more and more common.
In religion, morals, and politics, the suppression of your true opinion,
if not the positive profession of what you hold to be a false opinion,
is hardly ever counted a vice, and not seldom even goes for virtue and
solid wisdom. One is conjured to respect the beliefs of others, but
forbidden to claim the same respect for one's own.

This dread of the categorical proposition might be creditable, if it
sprang from attachment to a very high standard of evidence, or from a
deep sense of the relative and provisional quality of truth. There might
even be a plausible defence set up for it, if it sp