If the diseases of society consist in the weakness of its faith in
the existence of the God of the theologians, in a future state, and in
uncaused volitions, the indication, as the doctors say, is to suppress
Theology and Philosophy, whose bickerings about things of which they
know nothing have been the prime cause and continual sustenance of that
evil scepticism which is the Nemesis of meddling with the unknowable.
Cinderella is modestly conscious of her ignorance of these high matters.
She lights the fire, sweeps the house, and provides the dinner; and is
rewarded by being told that she is a base creature, devoted to low and
material interests. But in her garret she has fairy visions out of the
ken of the pair of shrews who are quarrelling downstairs. She sees the
order which pervades the seeming disorder of the world; the great drama
of evolution, with its full share of pity and terror, but also with
abundant goodness and beauty, unrolls itself before her eyes; and she
learns, in her heart of hearts, the lesson, that the foundation of
morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up
pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating
unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of
knowledge.
She knows that the safety of morality lies neither in the adoption of
this or that philosophical speculation, or this or that theological
creed, but in a real and living belief in that fixed order of nature
which sends social disorganisation upon the track of immorality, as
surely as it sends physical disease after physical trespasses. And of
that firm and lively faith it is her high mission to be the priestess.