This is an
eventuality which would have to be accepted as philosophically as may
be. The free foundations would take the place of the state institutes,
the slight drawbacks being more than compensated for by the advantage
of having no longer to make to the supposed prejudices of the majority
concessions which the state exacted in return for its pittance. The
waste of power in state institutes is enormous. It may safely be said
that not 50 per cent of a credit voted in favour of science, art, or
literature, is expended to any effect. Private foundations would not
be exposed to nearly so much waste. It is true that spurious science
would, in these conditions, flourish side by side with real science,
enjoying the same privileges, and that there would be no official
criterion, as there still is to a certain extent now, to distinguish
the one from the other. But this criterion becomes every day less
reliable. Reason has to submit to the indignity of taking second
place behind those who have a loud voice, and who speak with a tone of
command. The plaudits and favour of the public will, for a long time
to come, be at the service of what is false. But the true has great
power, when it is free; the true endures; the false is ever changing
and decays. Thus it is that the true, though only understood by a
select few, always rises to the surface, and in the end prevails.
In short, it is very possible that the American-like social condition
towards which we are advancing, independently of any particular
form of government, will not be more intolerable for persons of
intelligence than the better guaranteed social conditions which we
have already been subject to.
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