horribly unpleasant to burn at the stake, but at least you had the
satisfaction of knowing that the man who lit the faggots had some
shadow of reason behind him. He had at least an hypothesis. He acted
reasonably in its application. He believed something; he believed it
with some horse-sense; and he acted as the saviour of Society. But
today our censors have nothing behind them. No one supposes them to be
more moral, more charitable, more instructed than other men; still
less does anyone suppose them to be more inspired or dowered with
divine right. They do not defend a faith for which they, too, would
die; they merely bolster up a position because in so doing they find
bread and butter. They do not object to innovators because what they
innovate is bad; they object to innovators because they innovate. They
do not object to us because they believe that we tell lies; they
object because they know that we tell the truth.

This, then, is all very well, but what is the end to be? The
theologians have always said that Almighty God left man free to sin
because He did not want automatons. It is exactly here, however, that
your modern censors improve on the Deity. They do want automatons.
Only automatons will face liquid fire and poison gas. Only automatons
will live in a jerry-built cottage in a modern town and pay heavily
for the privilege. Only automatons will vote correctly at elections
and keep the political business going and allow everything to run on
smoothly for the next war. Only automatons will agree to the
lengthening of skirts from the knee to the ankle. And only automatons
will acquiesce in a system of morality which is not built on divine
revelation or even on social necessity, but on exploded superstitions
and sex domination and the conventions of the propertied classes.

Thus the devil is coming surely hut steadily into his own. We have