But it is literally the fact of recent
history. The great and grave changes in our political civilization all
belonged to the early nineteenth century, not to the later. They
belonged to the black and white epoch when men believed fixedly in
Toryism, in Protestantism, in Calvinism, in Reform, and not unfrequently
in Revolution. And whatever each man believed in he hammered at
steadily, without scepticism: and there was a time when the Established
Church might have fallen, and the House of Lords nearly fell. It was
because Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was
because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative. But in the
existing atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in Radicalism
to pull anything down. There is a great deal of truth in Lord Hugh
Cecil's suggestion (made in a fine speech) that the era of change is
over, and that ours is an era of conservation and repose. But probably
it would pain Lord Hugh Cecil if he realised (what is certainly the
case) that ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age of
complete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish
institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is
unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself. The
net result of all our political suggestions, Collectivism, Tolstoyanism,
Neo-Feudalism, Communism, Anarchy, Scientific Bureaucracy--the plain
fruit of all of them is that the Monarchy and the House of Lords will
remain. The net result of all the new religions will be that the Church
of England will not (for heaven knows how long) be disestablished. It
was Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Cunninghame Grahame, Bernard Shaw and
Auberon Herbert, who between them, with bowed gigantic backs, bore up
the throne of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

We may say broadly that free thought is the best of all the safeguards
against freedom. Managed in a modern style the emancipation of the
slave's mind is the best way of preventing the emancipation of the
slave. Teach him to worry about whether he wants to be free, and he will
not free himself. Again, it may be said that this instance is remote or
extreme. But, again, it is exactly true of the men in the streets around
us. It is true that the negro slave, being a debased barbarian, will
probably have either a human affection of loyalty, or a human affection
for liberty. But the man we see every day--the worker in Mr. Gradgrind's
f