which 18 to preside over the entire organization and reconstruc-
tion of Society should not be fixed and rigid like the old
Bibles, should not become a fetish to be clothed and encasetl
in dogmatic sanctity, but should be kept infinitely flexible and
adaptable to the progress of knowledge and research, sus-
ceptible of infinite modification in detail, or of entire
reconstruction if need be, and so gradually brought nearer and
nearer to harmony and perfection; and for this purpose the
highest honours, rank, and authority should be given to all
those concerned in the work, following in this the example of
the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages in the esteem in
which she held those great Doctors who at intervals of
centuries remodelled and reconstructed her vast system of
Theology in accordance with the practical needs as well a.*
intellectual necessities of the times. And here perhaps it may
not be out of place to remark in connection with this scheme of
National Education, that the Bible of Civilization is the only
Political Bible that can be adapted as easily to a Despotism a$
to a Monarchy, to a Monarchy as to a Republic ; inasmuch as
like some astronomical time-piece with which all local time-
pieces are to be harmonised, whether they be Dutch clocks,
Geneva levers, or English chronometers, it does not seek to
upset or abolish existing forms of government or institutions
which are founded on each nation's own ]>eculiar tradition and
evolution, but would direct their policy to that outside or ideal
point, as it were, which is marked out for them by the general
evolution of Civilization. In this way this Bible of Civili-
zation will be in marked contrast to the Utopias or Political
Bibles, whether of Rousseau, of the German Socialists, or of
the Anarchists, which as dealing with mere abstract ideals —
Liberty and Equality and the rest — are necessarily one-sided
(and as political ends therefore false), and only to be realised
by destroying existing institutions root and branch, instead of
coalescing with them and building up the future on, by, and
through them. And if in this I may seem to have restricted



NATIONAL EDUCATION. 