se, "_quod semper quod ubique quod
omnibus_"--"that which has been believed at all times, in all places,
and by all men"--has indeed a fine rolling sound, but where is the
dogma that satisfies its requirements? Or is it, such and such
really good and wise men with whom you are acquainted, and whom, it
may be, you have the privilege of knowing, have lived consistent
lives through the guidance of these dogmas, how can you who are many
grades their inferior in good works, in capacity and in experience,
presume to set up your opinion against theirs? The reply is, that it
is a matter of history and notoriety that other very good, capable,
and inexperienced men have led and are leading consistent lives
under the guidance of totally different dogmas, and that some of
them a few generations back would have probably burned your modern
hero as a heretic if he had lived in their times and they could have
got hold of him. Also, that men, however eminent in goodness,
intellect, and experience, may be deeply prejudiced, and that their
judgment in matters where their prejudices are involved cannot
thenceforward be trusted. Watches, as electricians know to their cost,
are liable to have their steel work accidentally magnetised, and the
best chronometer under those conditions can never again be trusted
to keep correct time.

Lastly, we are told to have faith in our conscience? well we know
now a great deal more about conscience than formerly. Ethnologists
have studied the manifestations of conscience in different people,
and do not find that they are consistent. Conscience is now known to
be partly transmitted by inheritance in the way and under the
conditions clearly explained by Mr. Darwin, and partly to be an
unsuspected result of early education. The value of inherited
conscience lies in its being the organised result of the social
experiences of many generations, but it fails in so far as it
expresses the experience of generations whose habits differed from
our own. The doctrine of evolution shows that no race can be in
perfect harmony with its surroundings; the latter are continually
changing, while the organism of the race hobbles after, vainly
trying to overtake them. Therefore the inherited part of conscience
cannot be an infallible guide, and the acquired part of it may,
under the influence of dogma, be a very bad one. The history of
fanaticism shows too clearly that this is not only a theory but a
fact. Happy the child, esp