stricted. No organised influence is at work to any great extent as a successor to Christianity, yet it is indubitable that, as Christian influence wanes, the temper of the age improves.
This improvement must have an adequate cause, and it would be merely another form of crude social reasoning and of sectarian prejudice to say, in the rich language of the older anti-clericals, that breaking "the fetters of superstition and priestcraft" led of itself to such a result. But this sanguine rhetoric does contain or obscure a certain truth. In plain human language, when you prevent a man from relying on the old traditional inspirations, he may for a time be tempted to act without inspiration. In the matter of his dealings with his fellows it is an undeniable fact that, on the whole, he has not been thus tempted. It is absurd to heap up all the contemporary instances of corruption in trade and politics, looseness in domestic life, and so on, unless you make a similar study of the vices and crimes of an earlier and more Christian generation, and carefully compare the two. It is not a question whether there is evil in our generation; it is a question whether there is more or less evil than in earlier generations. I must be pardoned for reiterating this, because, although this comparison is essential for forming an accurate judgment on the moral effect of the decay of Christianity, it is rarely instituted with the least pretence of rigour. I have sufficiently studied it in earlier works (especially The Bible in Europe), and will not repeat the facts. Cotter Morison, whom I quoted on an early page, was wrong in his expectation. The change from Christian to humanist inspiration is taking place without disorder and with increasing advantage.
