The institution makes life mechanical, and doing this it is as treacherous as it seems loyal to the treasured things of life, the developed ideas and established customs; it is even as sceptical towards them as it seems faithful; and in the spirit, if not in the letter, of Machiavellism it shows them no longer implicitly worshipped, but in use, which is to say, "put to the bankers," and so robbed of their character of sacred treasures. And as for Machiavelli himself, it may be worth while to remember that with all his offensiveness he has undoubtedly been very much maligned, and that to any student of history he seems only a very apt though an unpleasantly outspoken pupil of the most powerful institution of his time--the Roman Church--for which things moral and religious had certainly become effective instruments of very worldly ambitions. So in Machiavellism or in institutionalism, the name now being indifferent to us, we see worship passing into use; we see sacred things become secular, or things supposed final becoming only instrumental; and we see, therefore, what appears like loss or decline.[1] [p.262] But can there be anything besides loss or decline? This again is our question, and the answer now comes quick and decisive, whether we are thinking of Machiavelli or the Sophists, of the old-time Pharisees, or of those in our own life. Decline and even fall never tell the whole story of anything, and just because they mean use, even secular use. That men must worship is surely true, but also men must and do use, and the use, in spite of the strain of the offence and resistance which it is sure to arouse, brings profit always. Use, secular use, may imply sacrifice of the letter or the established form, but it always leads to liberation of the spirit. In scepticism, therefore, and the coincident conventionalism and utilitarianism towards sacred things, in the institutionalism which harbours all these, though often darkly and secretly, we may always read, what in truth history has again and again exemplified, the throes of birth, the birth of the spirit. Must it not be that any visible institution, be it ecclesiastical or industrial or political or educational or ceremonial, just because an institution designed in some way to serve an active, growing life, is always an outgrown, falling institution? As in the case of the Roman Church in the days of Machiavelli, an institution upon its establishment actually justifies its enemies by its own practices, while the enemies, so justified, do but lay it bare, exposing its hidden thoughts and ways, forcing reform upon it, and perhaps in the end themselves "remaining to pray."