"
"But such a one!"
"The old moral philosophers were grand, certainly, but not grander than
our own men are, of whom we only hear less because there are so many
more of them."
"But do you mean to say society is less sinful than it was?"
"There is one section of society at the present day, they tell me,
which is most desperately wicked. It is worse than any class was when
the world was young, because it knows so much better. But I believe the
bulk of the people like right so well that they only want a strong
impulse to make them follow it. I feel sure sometimes that we are all
living on the brink of a great change for the better, and that there is
only one thing wanting now--a great calamity, or a great teacher--to
startle us out of our apathy and set us to work. We are not bold
enough. We should try more experiments; they can but fail, and if they
do, we should still have learnt something from them. But I do not think
we shall fail for ever. What we want is somewhere, and must be found
eventually."
"They tried some experiments with the marriage laws in France once,"
Lorrimer observed, tentatively.
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