For if we do not, we shall hinder instead of helping the forces that are at work in us, and we shall retard instead of accelerating the process of our growth.
We have seen that education in the West has hitherto been a failure because, owing to the ascendency of the doctrine of original sin, it has been based on distrust of human nature; and we have seen that in Utopia, where Egeria's faith in human nature is so profound that she has allowed the children to go far towards educating themselves, the results achieved have gone beyond my wildest dream of what was practicable, at any rate within the limits of the school life of village children.

What is true of education is true _a fortiori_ of salvation.

If it is impossible to construct a satisfactory scheme of education on the basis of distrust of human nature, it is even more impossible (if there are degrees in impossibility) to construct on the same basis a satisfactory scheme of salvation.

I have already contended that if education is to be reformed, the doctrine of original sin must go; and I now contend that if our philosophy of life is to be reformed, we must abandon, not that doctrine only, but the whole dualistic philosophy which centres in the opposition of Nature to the Supernatural.

For trust in human nature--the microcosm--is impossible, so long as Nature--the macrocosm--is liable to be disparaged and discredited (in our minds) by the visionary splendours of the Supernatural world; and to devise a harmonious scheme of life is impossible so long as an inharmonious conception of the Universe dominates our thought,--a conception so inharmonious that it divides the Universe, the All of Being, into two hostile camps, and in doing so introduces the "war of the worlds" into each individual life.
When a fruit-grower plants a fruit-tree, he does three things for it.
By choosing an appropriate soil and aspect, he brings adequate supplies of _nourishment_ within reach of it.