ABSTRACT
Loyalty to clan or monarch and religious or political faith, however intense or rapturous, have an insecure tenure in the moral nature of man. The doctrinaire who for this reason turns upon human nature and calls it sinful or corrupt may be right metaphysically, but his conviction that he is right should give him no confidence that he can force his particular system upon mankind. He may pile controversial proof or may organise a dogmatic education like the Catholic Church or the Russian State and proclaim inexorable laws, like the Pentateuch, the Koran, or the Medes and Persians. Indomitable aliens will still surround and resist him. His own children will whisper incessant heresies; his very soul will trouble him with doubts or with treacherous extensions of orthodoxy; and nothing he can do will prevent the ground from crumbling under his feet, and the world from moving on to some other unexpected convention.
