Note 5 — Chapter III · THE SOCIAL RESOURCES OF RELIGION

Stuart Mill’s refutation of LePlay’s thesis that the salvation of the working classes can come only through the benevolence of their superiors is worth quoting in this connection: “No times can be pointed out in which the higher classes of this or any other country performed a part even distantly resembling the one assigned to them in this theory. All privileged and powerful classes have used their power in the interest of their own selfishness. I do not affirm that what has always been must always be. This at least seems to be undeniable, that long before superior classes could be sufficiently inspired to govern in the tutelary manner supposed, the inferior classes would be too much improved to be governed.”