l modes of thought; the national customs, will
be changed in ways we cannot forecast; but since the national
character will always remain British we need have no fear of that
change. All these things--remember, all these things; every one of
these things--is the result, direct or indirect, of association.
Think, for instance, of one difference in custom between now and a
hundred years ago. Formerly, when a wrong thing had to be denounced,
or an iniquity attacked, the man who saw the thing wrote a pamphlet or
a book, which never probably reached the class for whom it was
intended at all. He now writes to the papers, which are read by
millions. He thus, to begin with, creates a certain amount of public
opinion; he then forms a society composed of those who think like
himself; then, for his companions, he spreads his doctrines in all
directions. That is our modern method; not to stand up alone like a
prophet, and to preach and cry aloud while the world, unheeding,
passes by, but to march in the ranks with brother soldiers, exhorting
and calling on our comrades to take up the word, and pass it on--and
when the soldiers in the ranks are firm and fixed to carry that cause.

We are now witnessing one of the most remarkable, one of the most
suggestive, signs of the time--a time which is, I verily believe,
teeming with social mange--a time, as I have said above, of the most
stupendous importance in the history of mankind. We read constantly,
in the paper and everywhere, fears, prophecies, bogies of approaching
revolution. Approaching! Fears of approaching revolution! Why, we are
in the midst of this revolution, we are actually in the midst of the
most wonderful social revolution! People don't perceive it, simply
because the revolutionaries are not chopping off heads, as they did in
France. But it has begun, all the same, and it is going on around us
silently, swiftly, irresistibly. We are actually in the midst of
revolution. Everywhere the old order of things is slipping away;
everywhere things new and unexpected are asserting themselves. Let me
only point out a few things. We have become within the last twenty
years a nation of readers--we all read; most of us, it is true, read
only newspapers. But what newspapers? Why, exactly the same papers as
are read by the people of the highest position in the land. Perhaps
you have not thought of the significance, the extreme significance, of
this fact. Certainly those who continually ta