The great generalised beliefs are very restricted in number. Their rise and fall form the culminating points of the history of every historic race. They constitute the real framework of civilisation.
It is easy to imbue the mind of crowds with a passing opinion, but very difficult to implant therein a lasting belief.
However, a belief of this latter description once established, it is equally difficult to uproot it.
It is usually only to be changed at the cost of violent revolutions.
Even revolutions can only avail when the belief has almost entirely lost its sway over men's minds.
In that case revolutions serve to finally sweep away what had already been almost cast aside, though the force of habit prevented its complete abandonment.
The beginning of a revolution is in reality the end of a belief.
The precise moment at which a great belief is doomed is easily recognisable; it is the moment when its value begins to be called in question. Every general belief being little else than a fiction, it can only survive on the condition that it be not subjected to examination.
But even when a belief is severely shaken, the institutions to which it has given rise retain their strength and disappear but slowly. Finally, when the belief has completely lost its force, all that rested upon it is soon involved in ruin. As yet a nation has never been able to change its beliefs without being condemned at the same time to transform all the elements of its civilisation. The nation continues this process of transformation until it has alighted on and accepted a new general belief: until this juncture it is perforce in a state of anarchy. General beliefs are the indispensable pillars of civilisations; they determine the trend of ideas. They alone are capable of inspiring faith and creating a sense of duty.