Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age.  We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things.  Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision.  Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision.  It should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men:  it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy:  a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt it.  Progress should mean that we are always walking towards the New Jerusalem.  It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away from us.  We are not altering the real to suit the ideal.  We are altering the ideal:  it is easier.

Silly examples are always simpler; let us suppose a man wanted a particular kind of world; say, a blue world.  He would have no cause to complain of the slightness or swiftness of his task; he might toil for a long time at the transformation; he could work away (in every sense) until all was blue.  He could have heroic adventures; the putting of the last touches to a blue tiger.  He could have fairy dreams; the dawn of a blue moon.  But if he worked hard, that high-minded reformer would certainly (from his own point of view) leave the world better and bluer than he found it.  If he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colour every day, he would get on slowly.  But if he altered his favourite colour every day, he would not get on at all.  If, after reading a fresh philosopher, he started to paint everything red or yellow, his work would be thrown away:  there would be nothing to show except a few blue tigers walking about, specimens of his early bad manner.  This is exactly the position of the average modern thinker.  It will be said that this is avowedly a preposterous example.  But it is literally the fact of recent history.  The great and grave changes in our political civilization all belonged to the early nineteenth century, not to the later.  They belonged to the black and white epoch when men believed fixedly in Toryism, in Protestantism, in Calvinism, in Reform, and not unfrequently in Revolution.  And whatever each man believed in he hammered at steadily, without scepticism:  and there was a time when the Established Church might have fallen, and the House of Lords nearly fell.  It was because Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative.  But in the existing atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in Radicalism to pull anything down.  There is a great deal of truth in Lord Hugh Cecil’s suggestion (made in a fine speech) that the era of change is over, and that ours is an era of conservation and repose.  But probably it would pain Lord Hugh Cecil if he realised (what is certainly the case) that ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age of complete unbelief.  Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions