Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/51

 and John Burns have made England what it is, and was I to try his childish faith by confessing that none of these was in existence in the year 1066? I do not know whether I was right or wrong, but, right or wrong, I told him that the Norman Conquest was the result of the Tories being in office, and with that answer he was content.

But you see my point: the whole trend of history is absolutely undemocratic; it falsifies modern and enlightened principles on every page and in every chapter. The tendency of modern thought goes to show that the people are everything. To them the wisdom of the nation has given the supreme power; from them, we believe, all inspiration in things political and ecclesiastical proceeds. We scoff, and we scoff rightly, at the old aristocratic-sacerdotal idea that all good gifts are from above, that the universe is a hierarchy, an ordered system of graded functions and powers, in which there are varied excellencies and functions, one star exceeding another star in glory, the oak having one splendour, the