The grand adjustments were taken for granted, and within that framework men could make the minor adjustments patiently and elaborately, letting them become [p059] habitual and well-worn. This, perhaps, is the secret of the charm that an old civilization has for us to-day. We feel that here is a way of life which men have had time to refine and to embellish. The modern man in a progressive community has neither the time nor the energy for this delightful superficiality. He is too busy solving fundamental problems. He is so free to question his premises that he is no longer free to work out his conclusions. His philosophy of life is like the skyscraper; it is nine-tenths structure. So much effort has gone into constructing it, and making it fit to bear the strains, it is so new and yet it will so soon be out of date, that nobody is much interested in the character of it. But a mediæval cathedral, like the mediæval philosophy, was built slowly over generations and was to last forever; it is decorated inside and out, where it can be seen and where it cannot be seen, from the crypt to the roof. The modern man is an emigrant who lives in a revolutionary society and inherits a protestant tradition. He must be guided by his conscience. But when he searches his conscience, he finds no fixed point outside of it by which he can take his bearings. He does not really believe that there is such a point, because he himself has moved about too fast to fix any point long enough in his mind. For the sense of authority is not established by argument. It is acquired by deep familiarity and indurated association. The ancient authorities were blended with the ancient landmarks, with fields and vineyards and patriarchal trees, with ancient houses and chests full of heirlooms, with churchyards near at hand and their ancestral graves, with old men who remembered wise sayings they [p060] had heard from wise old men. In that kind of setting it is natural to believe that the great truths are known and the big questions settled, and to feel that the dead themselves are still alive and are watching over the ancient faith.