But in the robust tradition in which I was educated, “There are no bad regiments, only bad officers”. And if that is right, then whatever the complex reasons for this falling off in popularity, there is only one body to saddle with the responsibility for the present fiasco. And until they admit it, they are like salt which has lost its savour; and we all know what happens to that.
It is not easy to admit that your time has passed. Fabius Cunctator, the saviour of Rome, bitterly opposed the war-winning strategy of the younger Scipio, of invading Africa and defeating Hannibal there. Yet Scipio was right; and Fabius was wrong. If there is one thing lack of imagination cannot stand, it is having its limitations exposed. So no-one need think that the clergy would behave differently.
When you consider the inter-stellar spaces, and the almost boundless imagination of the person who created them, if they were created, and if they do exist and are not simply a dream or myth to which we all pay lip-service like the Victorian “aether”; the touchiness of mortal man in regard to any criticism of his egotistical vanities is as comic as it is absurd. Men are not equal; some men are incomparable in a crisis, and others utterly hopeless. And it is worth remembering that Charles Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, did research on the marks candidates obtained in examination results, and found the same distribution curve for mental qualities, as you find for physical qualities and molecular velocities. He reckoned you could describe 250 men per million as “eminent”, and the same percentage as “idiots”; the great mass of mankind being mediocre. Whilst you could describe barely one man per million as “illustrious”.
So much for man’s equality, in any shape or form. Yet it is hard to know how to avoid being shouted down by those who want to drag us all down to the same common denominator. But I would think it was worth a try.