til public opinion is ripe for the given piece of
improvement. But it is no reason at all why those who are anxious for
the improvement, should speak and act just as they would do if they
thought the change perfectly needless and undesirable. It is no reason
why those who allow the provisional utility of a belief or an
institution or a custom of living, should think solely of the utility
and forget the equally important element of its provisionalness. For the
fact of its being provisional is the very ground why every one who
perceives this element, should set himself to act accordingly. It is the
ground why he should set himself, in other words, to draw opinion in
every way open to him--by speech, by voting, by manner of life and
conduct--in the direction of new truth and the better practice. Let us
not, because we deem a thing to be useful for the hour, act as if it
were to be useful for ever. The people who selfishly seek to enjoy as
much comfort and ease as they can in an existing state of things, with
the desperate maxim, 'After us, the deluge,' are not any worse than
those who cherish present comfort and case and take the world as it
comes, in the fatuous and self-deluding hope, 'After us, the
millennium.' Those who make no sacrifice to avert the deluge, and those
who make none to hasten their millennium, are on the same moral level.
And the former have at least the quality of being no worse than their
avowed principle, while the latter nullify their pretended hopes by
conformities which are only proper either to profound social
contentment, or to profound social despair. Nay, they seem to think that
there is some merit in this merely speculative hopefulness. They act as
if they supposed that to be very sanguine about the general improvement
of mankind, is a virtue that relieves them from taking trouble about any
improvement in particular.

If those who defend a given institution are doing their work well, that
furnishes the better reason why those who disapprove of it and
disbelieve in its enduring efficacy, should do their work well also.
Take the Christian churches, for instance. Assume, if you will, that
they are serving a variety of useful functions. If that were all, it
would be a reason for conforming. But we are speaking of those for whom
the matter does not end here. If you are convinced that the dogma is not
true; that a steadily increasing number of persons are becoming aware
that it is not true; that it