s efficacy as a basis of spiritual life is
being lowered in the same degree as its credibility; that both dogma and
church must be slowly replaced by higher forms of faith, if not also by
more effective organisations; then, all who hold such views as these
have as distinctly a function in the community as the ministers and
upholders of the churches, and the zeal of the latter is simply the most
monstrously untenable apology that could be invented for dereliction of
duty by the former.

If the orthodox to some extent satisfy certain of the necessities of the
present, there are other necessities of the future which can only be
satisfied by those who now pass for heretical. The plea which we are
examining, if it is good for the purpose for which it is urged, would
have to be expressed in this way:--The institution is working as
perfectly as it can be made to do, or as any other in its place would be
likely to do, and therefore I will do nothing by word or deed towards
meddling with it. Those who think this, and act accordingly, are the
consistent conservatives of the community. If a man takes up any
position short of this, his conformity, acquiescence, and inertia at
once become inconsistent and culpable. For unless the institution or
belief is entirely adequate, it must be the duty of all who have
satisfied themselves that it is not so, to recognise its deficiences,
and at least to call attention to them, even if they lack opportunity or
capacity to suggest remedies. Now we are dealing with persons who, from
the hypothesis, do not admit that this or that factor in an existing
social state secures all the advantages which might be secured if
instead of that factor there were some other. We are speaking of all the
various kinds of dissidents, who think that the current theology, or an
established church, or a monarchy, or an oligarchic republic, is a bad
thing and a lower form, even at the moment while they attribute
provisional merit to it. They can mean nothing by classing each of
these as bad things, except that they either bring with them certain
serious drawbacks, or exclude certain valuable advantages. The fact that
they perform their functions well, such as they are, leaves the
fundamental vice or defect of these functions just where it was. If any
one really thinks that the current theology involves depraved notions of
the supreme impersonation of good, restricts and narrows the
intelligence, misdirects the religiou