t cannot be overlooked. That degradation of life that I have been
describing as the result of positivism--of what the age we live in calls
the only rational view of things--may indeed never be completed; but let
us look carefully around us, and we shall see that it is already begun.
The process, it is true, is at present not very apparent; or if it is,
its nature is altogether mistaken. This, however, only makes it more
momentous; and the great reason why it is desirable to deal so rudely
with the optimist system of the positivists is that it lies like a misty
veil over the real surface of facts, and conceals the very change that
it professes to make impossible. It is a kind of moral chloroform,
which, instead of curing an illness, only makes us fatally unconscious
of its most alarming symptoms.

But though an effort be thus required to realise our true condition, it
is an effort which, before all things, we ought to make; and which, if
we try, we can all make readily. A little careful memory, a little
careful observation, will open the eyes of most of us to the real truth
of things; it will reveal to us a spectacle that is indeed appalling,
and the more candidly we survey it, the more shall we feel aghast at it.
To begin, then, let us once more consider two notorious facts: first,
that over all the world at the present day a denial is spreading itself
of all religions dogmas, more complete than has ever before been known;
and, secondly, that in spite of this speculative denial, and in the
places where it has done its work most thoroughly, a mass of moral
earnestness seems to survive untouched. I do not attempt to deny the
fact; I desire, on the contrary, to draw all attention to it. But the
condition in which it survives is commonly not in the least realised.
The class of men concerned with it are like soldiers who may be fighting
more bravely perhaps than ever; but who are fighting, though none
observe it, with the death-wound under their uniforms. Of all the signs
of the times, these high-minded unbelievers are thought to be the most
reassuring; but really they are the very reverse of this. The reason why
their true condition has passed unnoticed is, that it is a condition
that is naturally silent, and that has great difficulty in finding a
mouthpiece. The only two parties who have had any interest in commenting
on it have been the very parties least able to understand, and most
certain to distort it. They have been e