But when we are asked what
substitute for elections can be proposed, none can be found. So with
the relationship between man and woman, the marriage laws and divorce.
The calculus has not been invented which can deal with such
complexities. We are in the same position as that in which Leverrier
and Adams would have been, if, observing the irregularities of Uranus,
which led to the discovery of Neptune, they had known nothing but the
first six books of Euclid and a little algebra.
There has never been any reformation as yet without dogma and
supernaturalism. Ordinary people acknowledge no real reasons for virtue
except heaven and hell-fire. When heaven and hell-fire cease to
persuade, custom for a while is partly efficacious, but its strength
soon decays. Some good men, knowing the uselessness of rational means
to convert or to sustain their fellows, have clung to dogma with
hysterical energy, but without any genuine faith in it. They have
failed, for dogma cannot be successful unless it be the INEVITABLE
expression of the inward conviction.
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