If those who defend a given institution are doing their work well, that furnishes the better reason why those who disapprove of it and disbelieve in its enduring efficacy, should do their work well also. Take the Christian churches, for instance. Assume, if you will, that they are serving a variety of useful functions. If that were all, it would be a reason for conforming. But we are speaking of those for whom the matter does not end here. If you are convinced that the dogma is not true; that a steadily increasing number of persons are becoming aware that it is not true; that its efficacy as a basis of spiritual life is being lowered in the same degree as its credibility; that both dogma and church must be slowly replaced by higher forms of faith, if not also by more effective organisations; then, all who hold such views as these have as distinctly a function in the community as the ministers and upholders of the churches, and the zeal of the latter is simply the most monstrously untenable apology that could be invented for dereliction of duty by the former. If the orthodox to some extent satisfy certain of the necessities of the present, there are other necessities of the future which can only be satisfied by those who now pass for heretical. The plea which we are examining, if it is good for the purpose for which it is urged, would have to be expressed in this way:--The institution is working as perfectly as it can be made to do, or as any other in its place would be likely to do, and therefore I will do nothing by word or deed towards meddling with it. Those who think this, and act accordingly, are the consistent conservatives of the community. If a man takes up any position short of this, his conformity, acquiescence, and inertia at once become inconsistent and culpable. For unless the institution or belief is entirely adequate, it must be the duty of all who have satisfied themselves that it is not so, to recognise its deficiences, and at least to call attention to them, even if they lack opportunity or capacity to suggest remedies. Now we are dealing with persons who, from the hypothesis, do not admit that this or that factor in an existing social state secures all the advantages which might be secured if instead of that factor there were some other. We are speaking of all the various kinds of dissidents, who think that the current theology, or an established church, or a monarchy, or an oligarchic republic, is a bad thing and a lower form, even at the moment while they attribute provisional merit to it. They can mean nothing by classing each of these as bad things, except that they either bring with them certain serious drawbacks, or exclude certain valuable advantages. The fact that they perform their functions well, such as they are, leaves the fundamental vice or defect of these functions just where it was. If any one really thinks that the current theology involves depraved notions of