Things
change less catastrophically than once they did. More particularly is
there less driving out into the wilderness. There is less heresy
hunting; persecution is frequently reluctant and can be evaded by slight
concessions. The world as a whole is less harsh and emphatic than it
was. Customs and customary attitudes change nowadays not so much by
open, defiant and revolutionary breaches as by the attrition of partial
negligences and new glosses. Innovating people do conform to current
usage, albeit they conform unwillingly and imperfectly. There is a
constant breaking down and building up of usage, and as a consequence a
lessened need of wholesale substitutions. Human methods have become
viviparous; the New nowadays lives for a time in the form of the Old.
The friend I quote in Chapter 2.10 writes of a possible sect with a
"religious edifice" and ritual of its own, a new religious edifice and a
new ritual. In practice I doubt whether "real" people, people who
matter, people who are getting things done and who have already
developed complex associations, can afford the extensive re-adjustment
implied in such a new grouping.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190