volume of denials, by blandly suggesting in an appendix to his
Modern Utopia, headed "Scepticism of the Instrument," that our senses
are so liable to err, that we can never be really sure of anything at
all. This spirit of denial is extraordinarily infectious. A man begins
to suspect what he calls the "supernatural." He joins an ethical
society, and before he knows where he is, he is a vegetarian. The
rebellious moderns have a curious tendency to flock together in
self-defence, even when they have nothing in common. The mere
aggregation of denials rather attracts the slovenly and the unattached.
The lack of positive dogma expressed by such a coalition encourages the
sceptic and the uneducated, who do not realize that the deliberate
suppression of dogma is itself a dogma of extreme arrogance. We trust
too much to the label, nowadays, and the brief descriptions we attach to
ourselves have a gradually increasing connotation. In politics for
example, the conservative creed, which originally contained the single
article that aristocracy, wealth and government should be in the same
few hands, now also implies adhesion to the economic doctrine of
protection, and the political doctrine that unitary government is
preferable to federal. The liberal creed, based principally upon
opposition to the conservative, and to a lesser degree upon disrespect
for the Established Church, has been enlarged concurrently with the
latter. The average liberal or conservative now feels himself in honour
bound to assert or to deny political dogmas out of sheer loyalty to his
party. This does not make for sanity. The only political creed in which
a man may reasonably expect to remain sane is Socialism, which is
catholic and not the least dependent upon other beliefs. Apart from the
inconsiderable number of Socialists, the average politician follows in
the footsteps of those gentlemen already mentioned. He is not allowed to
believe, so he contents himself with a denial of the other side's
promises. Assertion is infinitely more brain-wearing than denial.

Side by side with the increase in those who deny is a growth in the
numbers of those who come to regard apathy, suspended judgment, or a
lack of interest in a religious matter as a state of positive belief.
There are agnostics quite literally all over the place. Belief peters
down into acceptance, acceptance becomes a probability, a probability
declines into a reasonable doubt, and a reasonable doubt