It is this,
that no practice is entirely vicious which has not been extinguished
among the comeliest, most vigorous, and most cultivated races of
mankind in spite of centuries of endeavour to extirpate it. If a
vice in spite of such efforts can still hold its own among the most
polished nations, it must be founded on some immutable truth or fact
in human nature, and must have some compensatory advantage which we
cannot afford altogether to dispense with."
"But," said Ernest timidly, "is not this virtually doing away with
all distinction between right and wrong, and leaving people without
any moral guide whatever?"
"Not the people," was the answer: "it must be our care to be
guides to these, for they are and always will be incapable of
guiding themselves sufficiently. We should tell them what they must
do, and in an ideal state of things should be able to enforce their
doing it: perhaps when we are better instructed the ideal state may
come about; nothing will so advance it as greater knowledge of
spiritual pathology on our own part. For this, three things are
necessary; firstly, absolute freedom in experiment for us the
clergy; secondly, absolute knowledge of what the laity think and do,
and of what thoughts and actions result in what spiritual
conditions; and thirdly, a compacter organisation among ourselves.
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