In England this sentiment is less cultivated than in former times, but there still remain the Bible and the Throne. The House of Commons does not inspire it, the House of Lords is more and more failing to inspire it. The critical writing which is most keenly enjoyed is absolutely destitute of veneration. Looking to the future, a philosopher might ask himself whether the faculty was not destined to die out as having become useless. It is poetical, but it is not critical. When a poet does not feel it he feigns it; the critic knows that to approach a subject in a reverential spirit is to abdicate his own function. The misfortune is that when the common people cease to venerate they lose their interest in things. The fate of the Apocrypha is a significant illustration. The English no longer believe it to be inspired, they no longer venerate it, consequently they have ceased to read it. In France the Bible, for the same reason, is left unread by the Voltairean world. The old veneration for the Greek and Latin classics is passing away, and they will soon only be read by a few specialists. The French are losing their faith in the classics, once so staunch, with a rapidity that astonishes even those who are most familiar with French impulses. That was the last-surviving religion in intellectual France, and it is moribund. CHAPTER VI EDUCATION AND RANK [Sidenote: Education not a Mark of Class in France. Latin a Matter of Business.] [Sidenote: Greater Value of English University Degrees.] France, being a more advanced democracy than England, has made greater efforts to bring secondary education within the reach of many, and the consequence is that such education, in that country, having ceased to be a mark of class, confers very little social position. The majority of French boys who learn Latin do it simply as a matter of business, the bachelor’s degree being necessary to every physician and surgeon, to every barrister and notary, and even to every teacher of modern languages in the public schools. There are also examinations to be passed before practising pharmacy as a trade, and for that the examinations are not confined to the special science itself. In England the University degree is not absolutely required for the professions of law and medicine, and therefore it retains more of an ornamental character. It is more of an intellectual distinction and less of a matter of business than in France. [Sidenote: Tendency of Modern French Institutions.] [Sidenote: The _Bourgeois_.] [Sidenote: What Education can do in France.] [Sidenote: Degrees and Society.]