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THE DAWN OF A 
 NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
THE DAWN 
 
 OF A 
 
 NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 B V 
 
 DR. PAUL CARUS 
 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 
 
 CHICAGO LONDON 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 191(3 
 
COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING CO. 
 1916 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THIS collection of essays, written from time to 
 time on special occasions during my activity as 
 editor of The Open Court and The Monist, reflects the 
 changes that have been taking place in recent years all 
 over the religious world. We are now witnessing a 
 reformation which is not a moral rebirth as that of 
 Luther's time, but an intellectual development toward 
 a deeper comprehension of our religious aspirations. 
 We are coming to understand the religious problem 
 in its scientific significance. Biblical criticism, a com- 
 parative study of religion and the scientific method in 
 philosophy have broadened our minds, yet we have not 
 lost thereby in religious fervor or devotion to truth. 
 The result is the new era into which the religious world 
 is now entering. 
 
 When I took charge of The Open Court, in 1888, it 
 was regarded as an ultra-radical and even shockingly 
 blasphemous periodical, and I thought then that the 
 time would slowly come when the very orthodoxy of 
 our traditional religion would finally fall back on the 
 interpretation which I then advocated. The time has 
 come more quickly than I expected. A new orthodoxy 
 has arisen, and the philosophical interpretation of re- 
 ligion will gradually but surely become recognized as 
 the true conception of a scientific theology; in other 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 words, theonomy, with its scientific conception of God, 
 will replace the old bigoted views of an antiquated 
 theology. 
 
 The historical importance of the World's Congress 
 of Religions, held in Chicago in September, 1893,* dur- 
 ing the World's Columbian Exposition, has not been 
 under-estimated, but events since then have proved 
 that the Religious Parliament was in advance of the 
 time. Mankind is not yet ripe for its ideals. The 
 Roman Catholic Church, to which we owe in no small 
 degree the realization of the first Religious Parlia- 
 ment, has not favored a renewal of this co-operative 
 gathering. On the contrary, it has set its face against 
 the underlying idea of it, not that the laity or even the 
 
 *The World's Congresses of 1893 were held in the City of Chicago 
 from May 15 to October 28, under the direction of an organization 
 which bore the name of The World's Congress Auxiliary of the 
 World's Columbian Exposition. 
 
 There were twenty Departments and two hundred and twenty-four 
 General Divisions in which Congresses were held. 
 
 These Congresses embraced Woman's Progress, The Public Press, 
 Medicine and Surgery, Temperance, Moral and Social Reform, Com- 
 merce and Finance, Music, Literature, Education, Engineering, Art, 
 Government, Science and Philosophy, Social and Economic Science, 
 Labor, Religion, Sunday Rest, Public Health and Agriculture. 
 
 The Department of Religion embraced forty-six General Divisions, 
 including the Parliament of Religions. 
 
 In announcing the plans for the Religious Congresses the object in 
 view was proclaimed on the title-page of the announcement in these 
 words : 
 
 "To unite all religion against all irreligion ; to make the Golden 
 Rule the basis of this union ; to present to the world in the Religious 
 Congresses to be held in connection with the Columbian Exposition of 
 1893, the substantial unity of many religions in the good deeds of the 
 religious life; to provide for a World's Parliament of Religions, in 
 wbich their common aims and common grounds of union may be set 
 forth, and the marvelous religious progress of the Nineteenth Century 
 reviewed ; and to facilitate separate and independent Congresses of 
 different religious denominations and organizations, under their own 
 officers, in which their business may be transacted, their achievements 
 presented and their work for the future considered." 
 
 By inviting the different Religious Denominations to hold separate 
 and independent Congresses, they were effectually protected against 
 any appearance of surrendering their distinctive characteristics and 
 could safely participate in the Union Congress, called the World's 
 Parliament of Religions 
 
PREFACE VII 
 
 priesthood are opposed, but the hierarchical repre- 
 sentatives are afraid that their devotees might become 
 infected with heresy. Unfortunately the leaders in 
 control of the ecclesiastical institutions do not see that 
 the new spirit which is moving through the world to- 
 day can be made a power for regenerating the dead 
 creed, as has been shown in the mistaken condemna- 
 tion and suppression of the movement known as 
 Modernism. But the time will come when the new 
 reform will assert itself with that irresistible power 
 which every intellectual movement has shown, so that 
 after a while it will be accepted as a matter of course 
 and be declared a truth which has been recognized — 
 although not always clearly but instinctively — from 
 the very beginning. 
 
 In allowing this book to go forth I wish it Godspeed, 
 and hope it will recommend itself to the reading 
 public as the product of honest labor in the search for 
 truth. Paul Carus. 
 
 October, 1916. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 The Dawn of a New Religious Era 1 
 
 Science a Religious Revelation 22 
 
 The New Orthodoxy 41 
 
 The Late Professor Romanes's Thoughts on Religion. 52 
 
 The Revision of a Creed 74 
 
 Behold ! I Make All Things New 79 
 
 Definition of Religion 91 
 
 The Clergy's Duty of Allegiance to Dogma and the 
 
 Struggle Between World-Conceptions 99 
 
 The Work of the Open Court 114 
 
THE DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA. 
 
 THE Parliament of Religions, which sat in Chicago 
 from September 11 to September 27, 1893, was a 
 great surprise to the world. When the men who inau- 
 gurated it invited representatives of all the great relig- 
 ions of the earth to meet in conference, their plan was 
 looked upon with misgiving, if not with ridicule. The 
 feasibility and the advisability of their undertaking 
 were doubted. The greatest and most powerful 
 churches, it was said, would not be represented. The 
 Vatican, for instance, regards the Roman Catholic 
 Church as the only soul-saving power, with exclusive 
 authority to loose or bind. To allow a comparison be- 
 tween it and other churches on a footing of equality, to 
 appeal to reason, to provoke and favor such an appeal, 
 or to submit to a decision after argument, would be 
 tantamount to the recognition of reason, or logic, or 
 science, as a higher and the highest test of truth. Like 
 reasons, it was thought, would more or less influence 
 other denominations, for almost all of them claim to be 
 based upon a special divine revelation which is above 
 argument, so as to render the mere doubt of it sin. 
 
 In spite of all these doubts and fears, the Parlia- 
 ment of Religions was convened, and it proved an ex- 
 traordinary success. The work grew rapidly under the 
 
2 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 hands of its promoters, so that the time originally al- 
 lotted to it had to be increased until it extended over 
 seventeen days. Although discussion had been ex- 
 cluded from the programme so as to avoid friction, it 
 could not be entirely controlled. Nevertheless a good 
 spirit presided over all the sessions, so that criticism 
 promoted a closer agreement and united men of differ- 
 ent faiths more strongly in bonds of mutual respect 
 and toleration. The multitudes that filled the halls at 
 the closing session were animated with a feeling that 
 the Parliament had not lasted long enough, that a 
 movement had been inaugurated which was as yet only 
 a beginning that needed further development, and that 
 we should stay and continue the work, until the mus- 
 tard-seed we were planting should become a tree under 
 whose branches the birds of the heavens might find a 
 dwelling-place. 
 
 The idea of holding a parliament of religions is not 
 new. It was proposed and attempted on a smaller 
 basis in former times by Asiatic rulers. It has been 
 predicted and longed for by men of different races and 
 various religions. Of European authors we may men- 
 tion Volney who in his "Ruins" describes minutely 
 how "men of every race and every region, the Euro- 
 pean in his short coat, the Asiatic in his flowing robes, 
 the African with ebony skin, the Chinese dressed in 
 silk, assemble in an allotted place to form a great re- 
 ligious congress." 
 
 It is certain that similar ideas have stirred the 
 hearts of many. The Shinto High Priest of the Japa- 
 nese State Church, the Rt. Rev. Reuchi Shibata in one 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 3 
 
 of his speeches said : "Fourteen years ago I expressed 
 in my own country the hope that there would be a 
 friendly meeting of the world's religionists, and now I 
 realize my hope with great joy in being able to attend 
 this phenomenal congress." 
 
 It is but natural that this sentiment should prevail 
 in Japan where three religions, which closely consid- 
 ered are by no means compatible, exist peacefully side 
 by side. The ancient nature worship of Shinto was 
 not exterminated when the doctrines of Confucius were 
 preached and accepted, and the Buddhists wage no 
 war on either. Many families of Japan conform to the 
 official ceremonies of Shinto ; they even respect its 
 popular superstitions, and have their children taught 
 the precepts of the great Chinese sage as set forth in 
 the book of rites and other sacred writings, while they 
 themselves seek consolation for the deeper yearnings 
 of their souls in the wisdom of Buddha. There are 
 shrines for these three religions side by side in their 
 homes and in their hearts. 
 
 All uncertainty as to the feasibility of the gathering 
 vanished when the Roman Catholic Church most cor- 
 dially accepted the invitation to take part. "We, as 
 the mother of all Christian churches," said Bishop 
 Keane, in his extemporaneous and unpublished fare- 
 well address, "have a good right to be represented. 
 Why should we not come?" And nearly all the other 
 denominational representatives thought as he did. 
 Whether or not it was consistent with traditional ortho- 
 doxy, they came none the less. So powerful was the 
 desire for a religious union, representatives of the 
 
4 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 broadest as well as of the narrowest views met in fra- 
 ternal co-operation on the same platform. You could 
 see such an evangelist as Joseph Cook sitting by the 
 side of liberal clergymen, such as Jenkin Lloyd Jones, 
 of Chicago, and E. L. Rexford, of Boston. And these 
 Christians again exchanged cordial greetings with the 
 pagan Hindus and the atheistic Buddhists ; an unprec- 
 edented spectacle ! 
 
 And it was a spectacle in the literal sense of the 
 word. In accord with American simplicity, the men 
 of this country appeared in their every-day attire and 
 our European guests wisely followed their example. 
 Nevertheless, the sight was often picturesque. Car- 
 dinal Gibbons, when he delivered the prayer at the 
 opening of the first public session, wore his official 
 crimson robes. The prelates of the Greek Church, 
 foremost among them the Most Rev. Dionysios Latas, 
 Archbishop of Zante, looked very venerable in their 
 sombre vestments and Greek cylindrical hats. The 
 Shinto High Priest Shibata was dressed in a flowing 
 garment of white, decorated with curious emblems, 
 and on his head was a strangely-shaped cap wrought 
 apparently of black jet, from the top of which nodded 
 mysteriously a feather-like ornament of unknown sig- 
 nificance. Pung Quang Yu, a tall and stout man, an 
 adherent of Confucius, and the authorized representa- 
 tive of the Celestial Empire, appeared in Chinese 
 dress. There were present several Buddhist bishops 
 of Japan, in dress which varied from violet to black. 
 The turbaned Hindu monk, Swami Vivekananda, in a 
 long, orange gown, who, as we were informed, lived in 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 5 
 
 voluntary poverty so that as a rule he did not know 
 where he would receive his next day's meal ; Dharma- 
 pala, the Ceylonese Buddhist, in his robe of white; — 
 these and many more were the exceedingly interesting 
 men who appeared upon the stage and spoke their 
 minds freely on subjects over which in former ages 
 cruel wars were waged. Differences not only of re- 
 ligious opinions but also of races were represented in 
 the Congress. Bishop B. W. Arnet, of the African 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, confessed that the broth- 
 erhood of man had for the first time been taken seri- 
 ously. When introduced, he said, "I am to represent 
 the African, and have been invited to give color to the 
 Parliament of Religions." Interrupted by a storm of 
 merriment, he continued, "But I think the Parliament 
 is already very well colored, and if I have eyes, I think 
 the color is this time in the majority." 
 
 The Parliament of Religions was, I repeat, a great 
 spectacle; but it was more than that. There was a 
 purport in it. It powerfully manifested the various re- 
 ligious yearnings of the human heart, and all these 
 yearnings exhibited a longing for unity and mutual 
 good understanding. How greatly they mistake who 
 declare that mankind is drifting toward an irreligious 
 future ! It is true that people have become indifferent 
 about theological subtleties, but they still remain and 
 will remain under the sway of religion; and the 
 churches are becoming more truly religious, as they 
 are becoming less sectarian. 
 
 There are two kinds of Christianity. One is love 
 and charity ; it wants the truth brought out and desires 
 
6 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 to see it practically applied in daily life. It is animated 
 by the spirit of Jesus and tends to broaden the minds 
 of men. The other is pervaded with exclusiveness and 
 bigotry ; it does not aspire through Christ to the truth ; 
 but takes Christ, as tradition has shaped his life and 
 doctrines, to be the truth itself. It naturally lacks char- 
 ity and hinders the spiritual growth of men. The latter 
 kind of Christianity has always been looked upon as 
 the orthodox and the only true Christianity. It has 
 been fortified by Bible passages, formulated in Qui- 
 cunques, indorsed by decisions of oecumenical councils 
 and by papal bulls. Tracts privately distributed among 
 the visitors to the Congress contained quotations such 
 as, "Though we or an angel from heaven preach any 
 other Gospel unto you than that we have preached 
 unto you, let him be accursed"; and "He that be- 
 lieveth not shall be condemned." Without using the 
 same harsh terms, Saint Peter expressed himself not 
 less strongly, in a speech before the Jews concerning 
 Jesus of Nazareth, saying: "Neither is there salvation 
 in any other: for there is none other name under the 
 heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." 
 There were a few voices heard at the Parliament of 
 Religions which breathed this narrow and so-called 
 orthodox Christianity, but they could hardly be re- 
 garded as characterizing the spirit of the whole enter- 
 prise. They really served as a contrast by which the 
 tolerant principles of our Oriental guests shone the 
 more brightly. "The Hindu fanatic," said Viveka- 
 nanda, "burns himself on the pyre, but he never lights 
 the fagots of an Inquisition"; and we were told that 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 7 
 
 Buddha said to his disciples, "I forbid you to believe 
 anything simply because I said it." Even Moham- 
 medanism, generally supposed to be the most authori- 
 tative of all religions, appeared mild and rational as 
 explained by Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb. 
 Mr. Webb said : "The day of blind belief has passed 
 away. Intelligent humanity wants a reason for every 
 belief, and I say that that spirit is commendable and 
 should be encouraged, and it is one of the prominent 
 features of the spirit of Islam." At one of the meetings 
 a prayer was offered for those blind heathen who at- 
 tended the Congress, that God might have mercy on 
 them and open their eyes, so that they would see their 
 own errors and accept the truth of Christianity; but 
 the prayer, made in the spirit of the old bigoted Chris- 
 tianity which believes in the letter and loses the spirit, 
 found an echo neither in the hearts of our foreign 
 guests nor among the men who had convened the Con- 
 gress nor among the audience who listened to the 
 prayer. Far from being converted, the heathen dele- 
 gates took the opportunity of denouncing Christian 
 missionaries for their supercilious attitude and for 
 making unessential things essential. For instance, the 
 missionaries, they said, demand that the Hindus abolish 
 caste, and treat the refusal to eat meat a^;;^ pagan prej- 
 udice, so that in the Hindu mind "Christian" has 
 come to mean "carnivorous." One of the delegates, a 
 Brahman layman, said : "With the conqueror's pride 
 they cannot bring themselves down, or rather cannot 
 bring themselves up to practice the humility which 
 
8 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 they preach." B. B. Nagarkar, of Bombay, expressed 
 himself more guardedly. Said he : 
 
 "Sad will be the day for India when Christian missionaries 
 cease to come; for we have much to learn about Christ and 
 Christian civilisation. They do some good work. But if con- 
 verts are the measures of their success, we have to say that 
 their work is a failure. Little do you dream that your money 
 is expended in spreading abroad nothing but Christian dog- 
 matism, Christian bigotry, Christian pride, and Christian ex- 
 clusiveness. I entreat you to expend one-tenth only of your 
 vast sacrifices in sending out to our country unsectarian, broad 
 missionaries who will devote their energy to educating our men 
 and women. Educated men will understand Christ better 
 than those whom you convert to the narrow creed of some 
 cant Christianity." 
 
 The severest rebuke came from the lips of the rep- 
 resentative of Jainism, and from the monk Viveka- 
 nanda. The latter denounced Christian missionaries 
 for offering stones instead of bread. They build 
 churches, he said, and preach sectarian creeds which 
 benefit no one. They despise the sacred traditions of 
 the Hindu, the profundity of which they are unable to 
 fathom; and, he added, "What shall we think of a 
 religion whose missionaries distribute food in a famine 
 to the starving people on the condition of conversion ?" 
 
 These were hard reproaches, yet they were accepted 
 by the Christians with good grace.* The Rev. R. G. 
 Hume of India said, "We are willing to have our Bud- 
 
 *This passage was much commented upon in various newspapers 
 and religious journals, and it appears that the writer's attitude has 
 been misunderstood. 
 
 That several hard reproaches "were accepted by the Christians with 
 good grace" is not a slight, not a rebuke, but a praise. _ It is very- 
 doubtful whether a Mohammedan or any other but a Christian audience 
 would have been so patient as to listen good-naturedly to similar 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 9 
 
 dhistic and Brahman friends tell us how we can do 
 better. Any one who will help us to be more humble 
 and more wise will do us good and we will thank him 
 whoever he be." And Bishop Keane, Rector of the 
 Roman Catholic University at Washington, was not 
 lacking in this broad religious spirit. "I endorse, ,, said 
 the Bishop, impressively, "the denunciation hurled 
 against the system of pretended charity that offered 
 food to the hungry Hindus at the cost of their con- 
 science and their faith. It is a shame and disgrace to 
 all who call themselves Christians. And if Vivekanan- 
 da by his criticism can only stir us and sting us into 
 better teachings and better doings in the great work of 
 
 censures. Forbearance is always a symptom of strength. None but the 
 strong can afford to be generous and tolerant. 
 
 Among the comments that came to our notice the National Baptist 
 of November 23 discusses Vivekananda's statement under the caption, 
 "A False Accusation." Dr. S. W. Duncan writes: "I hope Bishop 
 Keane's denunciation was honest and not a covert fling at Protestants. 
 ... I suspect if the Hindu monk had told the whole truth, all he 
 knew, he would have been compelled to mention by name Roman 
 Catholics. Dr. Bunker has recently given me instances of his being 
 frustrated in his_ work by Catholic priests preceding him in heathen 
 villages, and buying up the chiefs, giving them money and other con- 
 siderations of weight with heathen, for their acceptance of crucifixes 
 and Romish rites and enrollment as Catholics. I have made inquiry, 
 and there is not on record a single intimation that any one of our mis- 
 sionaries has ever thus abused his holy calling." 
 
 We have a good opinion of Baptist missions, and know at the same 
 time_ that Roman Catholic missionaries, among them the much-reviled 
 Jesuits, have shown an admirable devotion to the cause of their religion. 
 
 Supposing Vivekananda's accusation to be true of some Christian 
 missionaries, we do not take it to mean a wholesale condemnation of all. 
 Nor do we wish to pour cold water upon the missionary zeal. The 
 missionary spirit is the index of the spiritual life of a religion, and we 
 are glad to see it in Buddhists not less than in Christians. But we 
 are sorry that the broad religious spirit which pervaded the Parliament 
 and is present among the Unitarians and other liberal institutions, is 
 too weak to undertake any great propaganda for their cause. How 
 much more effective would Christian missionaries be if they taught 
 religion instead of dogmas, and love of truth instead of blind faith. 
 
 The Louisville Record of November 30 calls Vivekananda's state- 
 ment slander, and adds: "When will we get over the harm done by 
 the World's Parliament of Religions?" This reminds us of the parable 
 of the sower, where Christ says: "Some [seeds] fell upon stony 
 ground." 
 
10 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 Christ, I for one shall be profoundly grateful to our 
 friend the great Hindu monk." 
 
 This is the true catholicity of the religion of man- 
 kind, and coming from the lips of a Roman Catholic 
 bishop, it did not fail to find a joyous and powerful re- 
 sponse in the audience. To the honor of our Hindu 
 friends we have to add that the fairness and impartial 
 love of justice with which their remarks were accepted 
 by a Christian audience, as well as by their Christian 
 brethren on the platform, were unhesitatingly recog- 
 nized. Said one of them, "The tolerance, the kind- 
 liness, nay, the patience with which you listen to the 
 enumeration of your faults, this sympathy with the 
 wrong done to heathendom by Christianity, makes me 
 believe that we have all advanced and are advancing 
 wonderfully." 
 
 Heretofore, the broad Christianity has always been 
 regarded as heretical; but as this Parliament proves, 
 times have changed. Judging from what we witnessed 
 at Chicago, the official representatives of almost all re- 
 ligions speak a new language. The narrowness of past 
 ages is now felt to be due to imperfect views of the 
 truth, and we recognize the duty to pass beyond it to 
 a higher and grander conception. There are still rep- 
 resentatives of the narrow spirit left, but their position 
 becomes more and more untenable. What does it 
 matter that previous ecumenical councils did not stand 
 upon a broad platform? Does not religion grow ? Was 
 the present Parliament of Religions not ecumenical? 
 And has the holy spirit of religious progress ceased to 
 be a presence in mankind? If ever any council was 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 11 
 
 ecumenical, it was this gathering at Chicago ; and al- 
 though no resolutions were passed, there were a cer- 
 tain harmony in matters of faith and a consciousness 
 of that which is essential, such as were never mani- 
 fested before. 
 
 The narrow Christianity will disappear, for its er- 
 rors have become palpable. There are still remaining 
 some prophets of the trust in a blind faith, but their 
 influence is on the wane. Liberals are inclined to sus- 
 pect the motives of the believers in the letter, but they 
 judge without charity. The narrow-minded Christian 
 dogmatists are neither false nor hypocritical, for we 
 have ample evidence of their earnestness and their 
 simple-minded piety. Yet they are mistaken. They 
 are deficient in insight and they lack in understanding. 
 We shall have to educate them and teach them that 
 the gentle spirit of Christ is not with them, but marches 
 on with the progressive part of mankind to the planes 
 of a higher evolution. 
 
 We all of us have learned much during these con- 
 gresses. Our foreign guests have learned to know 
 Christianity better than it appeared to them in the con- 
 duct of Christians and in sermons and Sunday-schools, 
 and we in turn have learned to respect not only the 
 love of truth and earnestness of pagans, but also their 
 philosophical capacity. 
 
 The narrow Christianity was represented by a few 
 speakers and the audience endured them with great 
 patience ; but we can fairly ignore them here ; for there 
 is no need of reviewing or recapitulating sermons which 
 every one who desires can enjoy in our various ortho- 
 
12 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 dox churches. Dr. Briggs represented progressive 
 theology and insisted that religion must face the criti- 
 cism of science. The Rev. Mr. Mozoomdar is the 
 leader of a similar movement in India. The Brahmo 
 Somaj, which he and the able Secretary of the Asso- 
 ciation, Mr. B. B. Nagarkar of Bombay, represented, 
 may be characterized as Hindu Unitarianism. Max 
 Miiller and Henry Drummond sent brief papers which 
 showed the warm sympathy of the authors and their 
 substantial agreement with the spirit of the Parliament 
 of Religions. 
 
 It is impossible to analyze the details of the various 
 views presented; but a few quotations from the 
 speeches of our heathen friends whom we had not the 
 pleasure of meeting before, will not be out of place. 
 
 Vivekananda explained the central idea of the Ve- 
 das as follows: 
 
 "I humbly beg to differ from those who see in monotheism, 
 in the recognition of a personal God apart from nature, the 
 acme of intellectual development. I believe it is only a kind 
 of anthropomorphism which the human mind stumbles upon 
 in its first efforts to understand the unknown. The ultimate 
 satisfaction of human reason and emotion lies in the realiza- 
 tion of that universal essence which is the All. And I hold 
 an irrefragable evidence that this idea is present in the Veda, 
 the numerous gods and their invocations notwithstanding. 
 This idea of the formless All, the Sat, i. e., esse, or Being 
 called Atman and Brahman in the Upanishads, and further ex- 
 plained in the Darsanas, is the central idea of the Veda, nay, 
 the root idea of the Hindu religion in general." 
 
 On another occasion the same speaker dwelt on the 
 idea of this panentheism with reference to the soul. 
 Though recognizing law in the world, he repudiated 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 13 
 
 materialism. The soul has tendencies, he said, and 
 these tendencies have been caused by past actions in 
 former incarnations. Science explains everything by 
 habits, and habits are acquired by repetition. That 
 we do not remember the acts done in our previous 
 states of existence is due to the fact that consciousness 
 is the surface only of the mental ocean, and our past 
 experiences are stored in its depths. The wheel of 
 causation rushes on, crushing everything in its way, 
 and waits not for the widow's tear or the orphan's cry. 
 Yet there is consolation and hope in the idea that the 
 soul is immortal and we are children of eternal bliss. 
 The Hindu refuses to call men sinners; he calls them 
 "children of immortal bliss." Death means only a 
 change of center from one body to another. He con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "The Vedas proclaim, not a dreadful combination of unfor- 
 giving laws, not an endless prison of cause and effect, but that, 
 at the head of all these laws, in and through every particle of 
 matter and force, stands One through whose command the 
 wind blows, the fire burns, the clouds rain, and death stalks 
 upon the earth. And what is his nature? He is everywhere, 
 the pure and formless one, the Almighty and the All-merciful. 
 Thou art our Father, thou art our mother, thou art our be- 
 loved friend, thou art the source of all strength. Thou art 
 He that beareth the burdens of the universe; help me bear 
 the little burden of this life.' Thus sang the Rishis of the 
 Veda. And how to worship him? Through love. 'He is to be 
 worshipped as the one beloved, dearer than everything in this 
 and in the next life.' " 
 
 The breadth of Vivekananda's religious views ap- 
 peared when he said : 
 
 "The same light shines through all colors, and in the heart 
 
14 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 of everything the same truth reigns. The Lord has declared 
 to the Hindu in his incarnation as Krishna, 'I am in every 
 religion, as the thread through a string of pearls, and wherever 
 thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power 
 raising and purifying humanity know ye that I am there.' " 
 
 Parseeism, the noble religion of Zarathustra, re- 
 ceived scholarly treatment by Jinan ji Jamshedji Modi 
 who repudiated its dualism and represented it as pure 
 monotheism, while he satisfactorily explained the sym- 
 bolism of the sacred fire. In this way almost every 
 religion was raised to a higher standpoint, than it is 
 usually understood to have, by its representatives, and 
 even idolatry found adroit champions in the Congress. 
 Said Vivekananda: 
 
 "It may be said without the least fear of contradiction 
 that no Indian idolator, as such, believes the piece of stone, 
 metal, or wood before his eyes to be his god in any sense of 
 the word. He takes it only as a symbol of the all-pervading 
 Godhood, and uses it as a convenient object for purposes of 
 concentration, which being accomplished, he does not hesitate 
 to throw it away." 
 
 Prince Momolu Massaquoi, son of a native king 
 from the Wey Territory of the West Coast of Africa, a 
 fine-looking youth of good education, which he had 
 received in an American college after his conversion 
 to Christianity, spoke in the same way as Vivekananda 
 concerning the idolatry of African natives. 
 
 Mohammedanism, in addition to its representation 
 by Moslems, was critically reviewed by the Rev. George 
 Washburn, President of Robert College, Constantino- 
 ple, who showed its points of contact and disagree- 
 ment with Christianity. He quoted passages from the 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 15 
 
 Koran which, in contrast to Mr. Webb's exposition, 
 prove the exclusiveness of Mohammed's religion. The 
 third sura, for instance, declares : 
 
 "Whoever followeth any other religion than Islam, shall 
 not be accepted, and at the last day he shall be of those that 
 perish !" 
 
 Dr. Washburn's quotation from the Koran reminds 
 us of similar passages in the New Testament; the old 
 orthodoxy of the Moslems, however, is giving way to 
 broader views. Tout comme chez nous! Dr. Washburn 
 quoted the following Mohammedan hymn, composed 
 by Shereef Hanoom, a Turkish lady of Constantinople, 
 and translated by the Rev. H. O. Dwight, which re- 
 minds us strongly of our best modern Christian poetry : 
 
 "O source of kindness and of love, 
 O give us aid or hopes above, 
 
 'Mid grief and guilt although I grope, 
 
 From thee I'll ne'er cut off my hope, 
 My Lord, O my Lord ! 
 "Thou King of Kings, dost know my need, 
 Thy pardoning grace, no bars can heed; 
 
 Thou lov'st to help the helpless one 
 
 And bid'st his cries of fear be gone, 
 My Lord, O my Lord ! 
 "Shouldst thou refuse to still my fears, 
 Who else will stop to dry my tears? 
 
 For I am guilty, guilty still, 
 
 No other one has done so ill, 
 My Lord, O my Lord ! 
 "The lost in torment stand aghast, 
 To see this rebel's sins so vast; 
 
 What wonder, then, that Shereef cries 
 
 For mercy, mercy, ere she dies, 
 My Lord, O my Lord!" 
 
16 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 Prof. Minas Tcheraz, an Armenian Christian, when 
 sketching the history of the Armenian Church, said 
 sarcastically that real Mohammedanism was quite dif- 
 ferent from the Islam represented by Mr. Webb. This 
 may be true, but Mr. Webb might return the compli- 
 ment and say that true Christianity as it showed itself 
 in deeds such as the Crusades, is quite different from 
 that ideal which its admirers claim it to be. Similar 
 objections, that the policy of Christian nations showed 
 very little the love and meekness of Jesus, were indeed 
 made by Mr. Hirai, a Buddhist of Japan. We Chris- 
 tians have reason enough to be charitable in judg- 
 ing others. 
 
 Buddhism was strongly represented by delegates 
 from Ceylon, Siam, and Japan. H. R. H. Chandradat 
 Chudhadharn, Prince of Siam, sent a paper which 
 contained a brief exposition of Buddhistic principles. 
 There are four noble truths according to Buddha. 
 These are (1) the existence of suffering; (2) the rec- 
 ognition of ignorance as the cause of suffering; (3) 
 the extinction of suffering by the cessation of the three 
 kinds of lust arising from ignorance ; and (4) the eight 
 paths that lead to the cessation of lust. These eight 
 paths constitute the way of salvation and are (1) 
 right understanding; (2) right resolutions; (3) right 
 speech; (4) right acts; (5) right way of earning a 
 livelihood; (6) right efforts; (7) right meditation ; and 
 (8) the right state of the mind. The Japanese Bud- 
 dhists are men of philosophical depth and genius, and 
 might have made a deeper impression than they did if 
 they had been more familiar with Western thought. 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 17 
 
 They left, however, behind them a number of pam- 
 phlets for free distribution by the Bukkyo Gakkuwai, 
 a society at Tokio whose sole purpose is the propaga- 
 tion of Buddhism.* The missionary zeal of the Japa- 
 nese Buddhists shows that there is life in Buddhism. 
 The Rt. Rev. Ashitsu concluded his article on the 
 teachings of Buddha with the following words : 
 
 "You know very well that our sunrise island of Japan is 
 noted for its beautiful cherry-tree flowers. But you do not 
 know that our country is also the kingdom where the flowers 
 of truth are blooming in great beauty and profusion at all 
 seasons. Visit Japan, and do not forget to take home with 
 you the truth of Buddhism. All hail the glorious spiritual 
 spring-day, when the song and odor of truth invite you all 
 out to our country for the search of holy paradise !" 
 
 One quotation from the Japanese missionary tracts 
 will suffice to prove that the ancient teachings of Gau- 
 tama are still preserved among his adherents of the 
 present generation of Japan. In "The Sutra of Forty- 
 two Sections" we read on page 3 : 
 
 "Buddha said: If a man foolishly does me wrong, I will 
 return to him the protection of my ungrudging love. The 
 more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me. 
 The fragrance of goodness always comes to me, and the 
 harmful air of evil goes to him. . . . 
 
 * These are the titles of the Japanese missionary tracts in my 
 possession: Outlines of the Mahayana as taught by Buddha, by S. 
 Kuroda, Superintendent of Education of the Jodo-Sect; The Sutra of 
 Forty-two Sections and Two Other Short Sutras, translated from the 
 Chinese originals (The Buddhist Propagation Society: Kyoto, Japan, 
 1892); A Shin-Shiu Catechism, by S. Kato of the Hongwanjiha of the 
 Shin-Shiu sect of Japan (The Buddhist Propagation Society, Kyoto, 
 Japan, 1893); The Skeleton of a Philosophy of Religion, by the Rev. 
 Prof. M. Tokunaga, translated by Zenshiro Noguchi (Tokio, Kawai 
 Bunkodo & Co., 1893); Outlines of the Doctrine of the Nichiren Sect, 
 by Nissatsu Arai, the lately lamented Dai-sojo. With the life of 
 Nichiren, the founder of the Nichiren Sect, edited by the Central 
 Office of the Nichiren Sect, Tokio, Japan, A. D. 1893. 
 
18 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 "Buddha said : A wicked man who reproaches a virtuous 
 one is like one who looks up and spits at heaven ; the spittle 
 soils not the heaven, but comes back and denies his own 
 person. So again, he is like one who flings dust at another 
 when the wind is contrary, the dust will return to him who 
 threw it. The virtuous man cannot be hurt, and the misery 
 that the other would inflict falls back on himself." 
 
 The Parliament of Religions is undoubtedly the 
 most noteworthy event of modern times. What are the 
 World's Fair and its magnificent splendor in compari- 
 son with it? Or what the German Army Bill, the Irish 
 Home Rule Bill in England and its drastic episodes in 
 the House of Parliament, or a change of party in the 
 United States ? It is evident that from its date we shall 
 have to begin a new era in the evolution of man's reli- 
 gious life. 
 
 It is difficult to understand the pentecost of Chris- 
 tianity which took place after the departure of Christ 
 from his disciples. But this Parliament of Religions 
 was analogous in many respects, and it may give us an 
 idea of what happened in Jerusalem nearly two thou- 
 sand years ago. A holy intoxication overcame the 
 speakers as well as the audience ; and no one can con- 
 ceive how impressive the whole proceeding was, unless 
 he himself saw the eager faces of the people and im- 
 bibed the enthusiasm that enraptured the multitudes. 
 
 Any one who attended these congresses must have 
 felt the thrill of the divine spirit that was moving 
 through the minds of the congregation. We may rest 
 assured that the event is greater than its promoters 
 ever dreamed of. They builded better than they knew. 
 How small are we mortal men who took an active part 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 19 
 
 in the Parliament in comparison with the movement 
 which is inaugurated! And this movement indicates 
 the extinction of the old narrowness and the beginning 
 of a new era of broader and higher religious life. 
 
 It is proposed that another Parliament of Religions* 
 be convened in the year 1900 at the ancient city of 
 Bombay, where we may find a spiritual contrast be- 
 tween the youngest city and the oldest, and pay a trib- 
 ute from the daughter to the mother. Other appro- 
 priate places for Religious Parliaments would be Jeru- 
 salem, the Holy City of three great religions, or some 
 port of Japan where Shintoism, Confucianism, Bud- 
 dhism, and Christianity peacefully develop side by 
 side, exhibiting conditions which invite a comparison 
 fair to all. 
 
 Whether or not the Parliament of Religions be re- 
 peated, whether or not its work will be continued, 
 the fact remains that this congress at Chicago will 
 exert a lasting influence upon the religious intelli- 
 gence of mankind. It has stirred the spirits, stimu- 
 lated mental growth, and given direction to man's fur- 
 ther evolution. It is by no means an agnostic move- 
 ment, for it is carried on the wings of a religious faith 
 and positive certainty. It is decidedly a child of the 
 old religions, and Chrstianity is undoubtedly still the 
 leading star. That the faults of Christianity have been 
 
 *It may be well to add that for reasons which need not be explained 
 here, all attempts to continue the Parliament of Religions were failures. 
 Under Mr. Bonney's direction a local committee tried to keep up a 
 propaganda under the name of the World's Religious Parliament Exten- 
 sion, but its work found no response and was practically futile. 
 
20 DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 
 
 more severely rebuked than those of any other religion 
 should not be interpreted to mean that the others are 
 in every respect better, for the censure is but a sign 
 that points to the purification of Christianity. The 
 dross is discarded, but the gold will remain. 
 
 The religion of the future, as the opinions presented 
 indicate, will be that religion which can rid itself of 
 all narrowness, of all demand for blind subordination, 
 of the sectarian spirit, and of the Phariseeism which 
 takes it for granted that its own devotees alone are 
 good and holy, while the virtues of others are but pol- 
 ished vices. The religion of the future cannot be a 
 creed upon which the scientist must turn his back, be- 
 cause it is irreconcilable with the principles of science. 
 Religion must be in perfect accord with science; for 
 science — and I mean here not the private opinions and 
 hypotheses of single scientists — is not an enterprise of 
 human frailty. Science is divine, and the truth of 
 science is a revelation of God. Through science God 
 speaks to us; by science he shows us the glory of his 
 works ; and in science he teaches us his will. 
 
 "We love science," said a Catholic priest, of Paris, 
 at one of the sessions in the scientific section, when pro- 
 testing against a thoughtless remark of a speaker who 
 broadly accused the clergy of being opposed to science. 
 "We love science," Father D'Arby said, emphatically ; 
 "the office of science in religion is to prune it of fan- 
 tastic outgrowths. Without science religion would 
 become superstition." 
 
 The human soul consists of two elements, self and 
 truth. Self is the egotistical desire of being some in- 
 
DAWN OF A NEW RELIGIOUS ERA 21 
 
 dependent little deity, and truth is the religious long- 
 ing for making our soul a dwelling-place of God. The 
 existence of self is an illusion; and there is no wrong 
 in this world, no vice, no sin except what flows from 
 the assertion of self. Truth has a wonderful peculiar- 
 ity; it is inexhaustible, and it, likewise, demands a 
 constantly renewed application. An increase of knowl- 
 edge involves always an increase of problems that en- 
 tice the inquiring mind to penetrate deeper and deeper 
 into the mysteries of being, and however serious and 
 truth-loving we may have been, there is always occa- 
 sion to be more faithful in the attendance to our obli- 
 gations and daily duties. Self shrivels our hearts; 
 truth makes them expand ; and the ultimate aim of re- 
 ligion is to eliminate self and let man become an em- 
 bodiment of truth, an incarnation of God. 
 
 We must welcome the light from whatever source 
 it comes, and we must hail the truth wherever we find 
 it. There is but one religion, the religion of truth. 
 There is but one piety, it is the love of truth. There is 
 but one morality, it is the earnest desire of leading a 
 life of truth. And the religion of the future can only 
 be the Religion of Truth. 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION.* 
 
 A FRENCH author of great repute has written a 
 book entitled L'irreligion de I'avenir, "The Irrelig- 
 ion of the Future," in which he declares that religion 
 will eventually disappear; and he whose opinion is 
 swayed by the diligent researches of such historians 
 as Buckle and Lecky will very likely endorse this pre- 
 diction. Theological questions which formerly occu- 
 pied the very centre of interest now lie entirely neg- 
 lected, and have ceased to be living problems. Who 
 cares to-day whether God the Son should be called 
 o/xoto? or bfioLoovmos, alike or similar to God the 
 Father? What government would now wage a war 
 for the interpretation of a Bible passage? No schism 
 will ever again arise over the question whether tovt 
 eanv means "this is my body," or "this represents 
 my body!" 
 
 It is quite true, as Buckle and Lecky assert, that 
 theological questions, or rather the theological ques- 
 tions of past ages, have disappeared, but it is not true 
 that religion has ceased to be a factor in the evolution 
 of mankind. On the contrary, religion has so pene- 
 trated our life that we have ceased to notice it as an 
 
 ♦Address delivered Sept. 19, 1893, before the World's Congress ol 
 Religion at Chicago, Illinois. 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 23 
 
 independent power. It surrounds us like the air we 
 breathe and we are no longer aware of it. 
 
 It was quite possible for our forefathers to preach 
 the religion of love and at the same time to massacre 
 in ruthless cruelty enemies who in righteous struggle 
 defended their own homes and tried to preserve their 
 separate nationality. Our moral fiber has become more 
 sensitive: we now resent the injustice of our own 
 people, although we no longer call love of justice 
 religious, but humane or ethical. 
 
 The famous blue laws that imposed penalties on 
 those who did not attend church have become obsolete. 
 We no longer burn infidels and dissenters, for we have 
 become extremely heretical ourselves ; that is to say, 
 our most orthodox clergymen would in the days of our 
 forefathers have appeared as infidels, and every one 
 of us, if he had spoken his mind freely, might have 
 been condemned to the stake, for all of us have 
 adopted, more or less, the results of scientific inquiry. 
 Truly religious men now believe in such things as 
 the Copernican system and evolution, which when 
 first proposed were deemed heretical and dangerous. 
 These theories have not, however, destroyed religion, 
 as the clergy predicted, but only certain theological 
 interpretations erroneously identified with religion. 
 Our religious views have not lost, but gained in depth 
 and importance. Those scientific innovations, which 
 were regarded as irreligious, have become truly re- 
 ligious facts ; they have broadened our minds and 
 deepened our religious sympathies. Our religious 
 horizon, which in the time of Samuel was limited to 
 
24 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 Palestine, and in the Middle Ages mainly to Europe, 
 has been extended over the whole cosmos. Judaism, 
 the national religion of the Israelites, became human, 
 and the humanitarianism of Christianity became cos- 
 mical. Sacrifices of goats and lambs have been abol- 
 ished, and by and by we shall have to give up all the 
 other paganism that attaches to some of our religious 
 views and institutions. But religion itself will remain 
 forever. That which appears to men like Buckle, 
 Lecky, and Guyau as a progress to an irreligious age 
 is an advance to a purer conception of religion ; it is a 
 gradual deliverance from error and a nearer approach 
 to truth. 
 
 Religion is indestructible, because it is that inner- 
 most conviction of man which regulates his conduct. 
 Religion gives us the bread of life. As long as men 
 cannot live without morality, so long religion will be 
 needful to mankind. 
 
 Some people regard this view of religion as too 
 broad ; they say religion is the belief in God ; and I have 
 no objection to their definition provided we agree con- 
 cerning the words belief and God. God is to me not 
 what he is according to the old dogmatic view, a super- 
 natural person. God is to me, as he always has been to 
 the mass of mankind, an idea of moral import. God 
 is the authority of the moral ought. Science may come 
 and prove that God can be no person, but it cannot 
 deny that there is a power in this world which under 
 penalty of perdition enforces a certain conduct. To 
 conceive God as a person is a simile, and to think of 
 him as a father is an allegory. The simile is appropri- 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 25 
 
 ate, and the allegory is beautiful; but we must not 
 forget that parables, although they embody the truth, 
 are not the truth. The fact is, God is not a person like 
 ourselves; he is not a father nor a mother like our 
 progenitors; he is only comparable to a father; but 
 in truth he is much more than that ; he is not personal, 
 but superpersonal. He is not a great man, he is God. 
 He is the life of our life, he is the power that sustains 
 the universe, he is the law that permeates all; he is 
 the curse of sin and the blessing of righteousness ; he 
 is the unity of being; he is love; he is the pos- 
 sibility of science, and the truth of knowledge: he is 
 light; he is the reality of existence in which we live 
 and move and have our being; he is life and the condi- 
 tion of life, morality. To comprehend all in a word, 
 he is the authority of conduct. 
 
 Such is the God of science, and belief in God must 
 not mean that we regard as true whatever the Scrip- 
 tures or later traditions tell us concerning him. Belief 
 must mean the same as its original Greek ttio-ti? which 
 would be better translated by trust or faithfulness. It 
 must mean the same as its corresponding Hebrew word 
 arnmunah, which is derived from the verb aman to be 
 steady. Arnmunah, generally translated ''belief" means 
 firmness of character. Belief in God must be an un- 
 swerving obedience to the moral law. 
 
 Science, i. e., genuine science, is not an undertak- 
 ing of human frailty. Science is divine; science is 
 a revelation of God. Through science God communi- 
 cates with us. In science he speaks to us. Science 
 
26 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 gives us information concerning the truth ; and the 
 truth reveals his will. 
 
 It is true that the hieroglyphics of science are not 
 easy to decipher and they sometimes seem to over- 
 throw the very foundations of morality, as it appeared, 
 for instance, to Professor Huxley. But such mistakes 
 must be expected ; they are natural and should not 
 agitate us nor shake our confidence in the reliability 
 of science. Reason is the divine spark in man's na- 
 ture, and science, which is a methodical application 
 of man's reason, affords us the ultimate criterion of 
 truth. Surrender science and you rob man of his di- 
 vinity, his self-reliance, his child-relation to God ; you 
 make of him the son of the bondwoman and the slave 
 of tradition, to inquire into the truth of which he who 
 allows his judgment to be taken captive has forfeited 
 the right. By surrendering science you degrade man ; 
 you cut him off from the only reliable communication 
 with God, and thus change religion into superstition. 
 
 There are devotees of religion who despise science 
 and object to its influence in the sphere of religion. 
 They not only deny that science is a revelation, but they 
 also claim that religion has a peculiar revelation of her 
 own. Religion, they say, has been revealed once; 
 this special revelation must be blindly accepted ; and 
 no criticism of it should be tolerated. 
 
 Men of this type are as a rule very pious, faithful, 
 and well-meaning, but they are narrow-minded and 
 without judgment. While all life on earth is growth, 
 their religious ideal is a fossil. To be and remain sta- 
 tionary is with them a matter of principle. They are 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 27 
 
 blind to the facts that religion, too, has to develop; 
 that intellectual and moral growth is an indispensable 
 condition of its life and health; and that science, far 
 from being its enemy, is its sister and co-worker. 
 Science will help religion to find the true path of 
 progress. 
 
 Some of the schoolmen who were, or tried to be, 
 orthodox theologians and philosophers at the same 
 time, carried the consequences of this dualism to the 
 extreme, and made a distinction between religious truth 
 and scientific truth, declaring that a proposition might 
 be true in religion which is utterly false in philosophy, 
 and vice versa. This view is not only logically unten- 
 able, but it is also morally frivolous; it is irreligious. 
 
 What is truth ? 
 
 Truth is the congruence of an idea and the fact ex- 
 pressed in it. It is a correct statement of that which 
 the statement represents. Thomas Aquinas defines it 
 as adaequatio intellectus et rei. 
 
 What is scientific truth ? 
 
 A statement may be true, yet may be vaguely or 
 awkwardly expressed ; it may have an admixture of 
 error, it may be misleading; one man might under- 
 stand it right, while another might not. Again, a 
 statement may be true and well formulated, yet he 
 who makes it cannot prove it. It may rest upon hy- 
 pothesis and be a mere assumption arrived at by a 
 happy guess. All such truths are imperfect. They 
 are not scientific. Scientific truths are such statements 
 as are proved by undeniable evidence or by experi- 
 
28 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 ments and formulated in exact and unequivocal terms. 
 
 What is religious truth? 
 
 By religious truth we understand all such reliable 
 statements of fact or doctrines, be they perfect or im- 
 perfect, as have a direct bearing upon our moral con- 
 duct. Statements of fact, the application of which 
 can be formulated in such rules as, "Thou shalt not 
 lie," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not envy 
 nor hate," are religious. 
 
 Scientific truths and moral truths, accordingly, are 
 not separate and distinct spheres. A truth becomes 
 scientific by its form and method of statement, but it 
 is religious by its substance or content. There may be 
 truths which are religious yet lack the characteristics 
 that would render them scientific, and others that are 
 religious and scientific at the same time. But cer- 
 tainly, there is no discrepancy between religious and 
 scientific truth. There are not two kinds of truth, one 
 religious and the other scientific. There is no conflict 
 possible between them. The scholastic maxim, that 
 a statement may be perfectly true in religion and false 
 in philosophy, and vice versa, is wrong. 
 
 The nature of religious truth is the same as that of 
 scientific truth. There is but one truth. There can- 
 not be two truths in conflict with one another. Contra- 
 diction is always, in religion not less than in science, 
 a sign that there is somewhere an error. There cannot 
 be in religion any other method of ascertaining the 
 truth than the method found in science. And if we 
 renounce reason and science, we can have no ultimate 
 criterion of truth. 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 29 
 
 The dignity of man, his sonship, consists in his 
 ability to ascertain, and know, the truth. Reason is 
 that which makes man the image of God, and science 
 is the exercise of the noblest human faculty. 
 * * * 
 
 In former ages, religion has often found truths by 
 instinct, as it were, and boldly stated their practical 
 applications, while the science of the time was not 
 sufficiently advanced to prove them. The religious 
 instinct anticipated the most important moral truths, 
 before a rational argumentation could lead to their 
 recognition. This instinctive or intuitive apprehen- 
 sion of truth has always distinguished our great re- 
 ligious prophets. Their statements were, with rare ex- 
 ceptions, neither founded upon scientific investigation 
 nor formulated with any attempt at precision. Their 
 exhortations were more oratorical than logical, adapted 
 to popular comprehension, and abounding in figures 
 of speech. 
 
 Almost all religions have drawn upon that wondrous 
 resource of human insight, inspiration, which reveals a 
 truth not in a systematic and scientific way but at a 
 glance, as it were, and by divination. The religious 
 instinct of man taught our forefathers some of the most 
 important moral truths, which, with the limited wis- 
 dom of their age, they never could have known by 
 other means. 
 
 Science has done much of late, especially since 
 Darwin, to explain instinct in the animal world. In- 
 stinct is an amazing faculty, prodigious and life-pre- 
 
30 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 serving, and it plays an important part also in the 
 evolution of mankind. 
 
 In almost all practical fields men, through a for- 
 tunate combination of circumstances aided by imagina- 
 tion, made important inventions which they were un- 
 able to understand. Their achievements were fre- 
 quently in advance of their knowledge. 
 
 Prof. Ernst Mach says in his excellent book, The 
 Science of Mechanics: 
 
 "An instinctive, irreflective knowledge of the processes of 
 nature will doubtless always precede the scientific, conscious 
 apprehension, or investigation, of phenomena. The former is 
 the outcome of the relation in which the processes of nature 
 stand to the satisfaction of our wants. The acquisition of the 
 most elementary truth does not devolve upon the individual 
 alone : it is pre-effected in the development of the race. 
 
 "In point of fact, it is necessary to make a distinction be- 
 tween mechanical experience and mechanical science, in the 
 sense in which the latter term is at present employed. Me- 
 chanical experiences are, unquestionably, very old. If we 
 carefully examine the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian monu- 
 ments, we shall find there pictorial representations of many 
 kinds of implements and mechanical contrivances; but ac- 
 counts of the scientific knowledge of these peoples are either 
 totally lacking, or point conclusively to a very inferior grade 
 of attainment. By the side of highly ingenious appliances, we 
 behold the crudest and roughest expedients employed — as the 
 use of sleds, for instance, for the transportation of enormous 
 blocks of stone. All bears an instinctive, unperfected, acci- 
 dental character. 
 
 "So, too, prehistoric graves contain implements, whose 
 construction and employment imply no little skill and much 
 mechanical experience. Thus, long before theory was 
 dreamed of, implements, machines, mechanical experiences, 
 and mechanical knowledge were abundant." 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 31 
 
 The instinctive wisdom of man is remarkable. This 
 is true not only in its relation to liberal arts and manu- 
 factures, but also in the regulation of the moral life 
 of man. Centuries before Christ, when ethics as a 
 science was as yet unknown, the sages of Asia taught 
 men to love their enemies.* The preachings of Christ 
 appeared to his contemporaries as impractical and 
 visionary, while only recently we have learned to 
 understand that the fundamental commands of relig- 
 ious morality are the only correct applications to be 
 derived from the psychical and social laws of human 
 life. Spinoza was the first among European philos- 
 ophers to prove by logical arguments that hatred can 
 be conquered by love only. 
 
 As the instinctive inventions of prehistoric ages 
 show "by the side of highly ingenious appliances the 
 crudest and roughest expedients," so our religions, too, 
 often exhibit by the side of the loftiest morality a most 
 lamentable lack of insight into the nature of ethical 
 truth. Take, for instance, Jehovah's direct and undis- 
 guised command, given by Moses to the children of 
 Israel, to steal gold and silver vessels from the Egyp- 
 tians. Or take Jael's treacherous murder of Sisera, 
 an infamous deed, excusable only as being in conso- 
 nance with the general barbarity of the age, yet it is 
 highly praised in song by Deborah and declared worthy 
 of imitation.f 
 
 * We quote one instance only selected from the Dhammapada, one of 
 the most ancient books of the Buddhist canon: "Hatred does not cease 
 by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule." — 
 Sacred Books of the East, Vol. X, p. 5. 
 
 f Judges iv., 18-21. 
 
32 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 We admire St. Paul in many respects, but we must 
 say that his view of marriage is un-Christian ; it is un- 
 worthy of his sacred office as an apostle ; it is a blemish 
 on our Bible ; it is irreligious and should have no place 
 in religion. 
 
 Who is orthodox enough still to defend such im- 
 perfections and shortcomings in our otherwise sacred 
 traditions? Who would shut out from them the light 
 of a rational and scientific inquiry, so as to preserve 
 the blemishes of religion together with its noble sen- 
 timents? 
 
 A scientist, like Ernst Mach from whom we have 
 quoted above the passage on the evolution of mechan- 
 ics, knows that the science of mechanics does not come 
 to destroy the mechanical inventions of the past, but 
 that on the contrary, it will make them more available. 
 In the same way a scientific insight into religious truth 
 does not come to destroy religion; it will purify and 
 
 broaden it. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The dislike of religious men to accept lessons from 
 science is natural and excusable. Whenever a great 
 religious teacher has risen, leaving a deep impression 
 upon the minds of those around him, we find his 
 disciples anxious to preserve inviolate not only his 
 spirit, but even the very words of his doctrines. Such 
 reverence is good, but it must not be carried to the 
 extreme of placing tradition above the authority of 
 truth. Religious zeal must never become sectarian, 
 so as to see no other salvation than in one particular 
 form of religion. The great prophets of mankind, such 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 33 
 
 men as Zarathustra, Confucius, Buddha, Socrates, 
 Moses, and, foremost among them, He who wore the 
 thorny crown and died on the cross, are distinguished 
 by breadth and catholicity. 
 
 We read in the eleventh chapter of Numbers, 27-29 : 
 
 "And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, 
 Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. 
 
 "And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one 
 of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses, forbid 
 them. 
 
 "And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? 
 would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that 
 the Lord would put his spirit upon them!" 
 
 Our great religious leaders are decidedly broader 
 than their disciples. The apostle St. John showed a 
 love for his great master, Jesus of Nazareth, like that 
 shown by Joshua for Moses, and also the same lack 
 of discretion when he reprimanded the man who cast 
 out devils in the name of Christ. John forbade him, 
 but Christ did not approve of the well-intentioned zeal 
 of his most beloved disciple and said : 
 
 "Forbid him not ! . . . . 
 
 "For he that is not against us is on our part." — Mark ix, 
 39-40. 
 
 The spirit of Joshua and John, prompting them to 
 forbid others to teach or prophesy except by the spe- 
 cial permission of their masters, has produced that 
 sectarian attitude of our religions which detracts so 
 much from their catholicity, establishing the authority 
 of tradition as the highest court of appeal in questions 
 of religious faith and truth. 
 
 Reverence for our master makes us easily forgetful 
 
34 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 of our highest duty, reverence for an impartial recog- 
 nition of the truth. The antipathy of a certain class 
 of religious men toward science, although natural and 
 excusable, should nevertheless be recognized as a 
 grievous fault; it is a moral error and an irreligious 
 
 attitude. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I have myself suffered from the misapplication of 
 religious conservatism, and I know whereof I speak. 
 I have experienced in my heart, as a faithful believer, 
 all the curses of infidelity and felt the burning flames 
 of damnation. 
 
 Our religious mythology is so thoroughly identified 
 with religion itself, that when the former is recognized 
 as erroneous, the latter also will unavoidably collapse. 
 A man is commanded to accept and believe the very 
 letter of our codified dogmas or be lost forever. 
 
 You who preach such a religion, can you fathom 
 the tortures of a faithful and God-loving soul, when 
 confronted with ample scientific evidence of the un- 
 truth of his religious convictions? A man who could 
 imagine no higher bliss than to die for his religion and 
 in the performance of his duties, who loves his God and 
 is anxious to believe in him, to rely on him, to trust in 
 him, feels himself dragged down into the pit of un- 
 belief. Do you think the voice of science can be 
 hushed ? Science may be regarded for a long time as a 
 temptation ; but it is too powerful, too convincing, and 
 too divine to be conquered. Wherever there is a soul 
 distorted by a conflict between religious faith and scien- 
 tific insight, the latter will, in the long run, always be 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 35 
 
 victorious. And what a downfall of our noblest hopes 
 must ensue ! The highest ideals have become illusions ; 
 the purpose of life is gone, and desolation rules 
 supreme. 
 
 When a faithful Christian turns infidel, it is an act, 
 the boldness and significance of which cannot be over- 
 rated. The man himself is too much occupied with 
 the anxieties of his own troubled mind to judge 
 himself whether it will lead him to hell or by the 
 road of evolution heavenward, to higher goals. He 
 is in the predicament of Faust when he dared to make 
 the pact with the Devil. Titan-like, he decides to 
 brave the storm and to challenge the powers that shape 
 his fate. Faust, when cursing Hope, Faith, and 
 Patience, is conscious of the situation which is char- 
 acterized in these lines : 
 
 "Woe, woe ! 
 Thou hast it destroyed, 
 The beautiful world, 
 With powerful fist : 
 In ruin 'tis hurled, 
 By the blow of a demigod shattered ! 
 The scattered 
 
 Fragments into the Void we carry, 
 Deploring 
 
 The Beauty perished beyond restoring. 
 Mightier 
 
 For the children of men, 
 Brightlier 
 Build it again, 
 
 In thine own bosom build it anew ! 
 Bid the new career 
 Commence 
 
36 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 With clearer sense, 
 
 And the new songs of cheer 
 
 Be sung thereto!" 
 
 When a faithful Christian turns infidel, the world 
 in which he lived breaks down. He sees the errors 
 which form its foundation-stones, and he hastens to 
 destroy the whole structure. Depict in your mind the 
 earnestness, the severity, and the terror of the situa- 
 tion, and you will no longer think that the bitterness 
 of infidels is an evidence of their irreligious spirit ; irre- 
 ligious acrimony is the expression of disappointment 
 and indicates very frequently a deep religious senti- 
 ment, which unfortunate circumstances have curdled 
 and turned sour. Therefore, do not look upon the rabid 
 Freethinkers as enemies of religion. Learn to regard 
 them as your brethren who have passed into a phase of 
 the religious development which may be necessary to 
 their higher evolution. They have recognized, in their 
 search for truth, that the old dogmatism of religion is 
 found wanting, but they are as yet unable to build up 
 again another and a better world in place of the one 
 they have destroyed. 
 
 The destruction of dogmatism appears as a wreck 
 of religion itself, but, in fact, it is a religious advance. 
 Says Tobit in his prayer : 
 
 "God leadeth down to hell and bringeth up again."— Tobit, 
 xiii, 2. 
 
 We must pass through all the despair of infidelity 
 and of a religious emptiness before we can learn to 
 appreciate the glory and grandeur of a higher stage of 
 religious evolution. 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 37 
 
 When infidelity is the result of a sincere love of 
 truth, do not look upon it as irreligious. Any one who 
 dares to have views of his own and is honest in his 
 convictions is a religious man. And the Proverbs say : 
 "God layeth up sound wisdom for the upright." He 
 who is sincere, will, even when erring, find in the 
 end the right way. 
 
 Bear in mind that all truth is sacred and you have 
 the clue to a reconciliation of the conflict between sci- 
 ence and religion. There is a holiness and a truly re- 
 ligious import about science which has not yet been 
 sufficiently recognized, either by the clergy or by 
 scientists. 
 
 Science, it is true, comes to destroy the old dog- 
 matism, it discredits blind faith, and rejects the trust 
 in the letter. But he who sees deeper will soon per- 
 ceive that no harm is done, for science preserves the 
 spirit of religion ; it enhances truth. 
 
 We all know that religious truths are expressed in 
 allegories; Christ spoke in parables and St. Paul says 
 in his first epistle to the Corinthians (iii, 2) : 
 
 "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat : for hitherto 
 ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able." 
 
 If Paul were among us to-day, would he still say, 
 
 "Neither yet now are you able?" 
 
 And to the Hebrews he writes (v, 12) : 
 "For every one that uses milk is unskilful in the word of 
 
 righteousness, for he is a babe." 
 
 Is there any doubt that all our dogmas are truths 
 figuratively expressed? Why should we not take the 
 consequences of this truth? Very few, indeed, do 
 
38 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 take them ; for we have become so accustomed to par- 
 ables that our so-called orthodox believers denounce 
 as heretics those who do not believe them verbatim. 
 
 A religious truth symbolically expressed is called 
 mythology, and he who accepts the mythology of his 
 religion not as a parable filled with meaning but as the 
 truth itself, is a pagan. Now we make bold to say, 
 that no conflict is possible between genuine science 
 and true religion. What appears as such is a conflict 
 between science and paganism. 
 
 Religious parables, if taken in their literal mean- 
 ing, will somehow always be found irrational. Says 
 an old Roman proverb, Omne simile claudicat, every 
 comparison limps; it is somewhere faulty. Why 
 should religious similes be exceptions? 
 
 Let us not forget that our religious preachings and 
 teachings are a mere stammering of the truth. They 
 show us the truth as through a glass, darkly. The tra- 
 ditional expressions of religious aspirations are based 
 more upon the intuitional instinct of the prophets of 
 former ages than upon a rational and scientific insight. 
 The former is good, but it should not exclude the 
 latter. The assuredness of our religious sentiments 
 must not tyrannize over or suppress our scientific 
 
 abilities. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Man's reason and scientific acumen are comparable 
 to the eyes of his body, while his religious sentiments 
 are like the sense of touch. The simplicity and im- 
 mediateness of our feelings of touch do not make it 
 advisable to dispense with sight. 
 
SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 39 
 
 There are religious teachers who advise us to rely 
 entirely upon our religious feelings and distrust the 
 eyesight of science. O blind leader of the blind, knowest 
 thou not that if thine eye be evil, thy whole 
 body shall be full of darkness? The snail that creeps 
 on the ground may from necessity be obliged to 
 rely alone on its sense of touch in its feelers, but man 
 with his higher possibilities and in his more compli- 
 cated existence needs his eyes and cannot make firm 
 steps without them. Ye adversaries of free inquiry 
 are like the blind man who groping about finds an 
 even and smooth path which, he feels assured, is the 
 highroad that leads him home. Having no eyes to see 
 he is not aware that he is walking on a railway em- 
 bankment and that the train is already approaching 
 that will complete the tragedy of his fate. 
 
 That conception of religion which rejects science 
 is inevitably doomed. It cannot survive and is des- 
 tined to disappear with the progress of civilization. 
 Nevertheless, religion will not go. Religion will abide. 
 Humanity will never be without religion; for religion 
 is the basis of morals, and man could not exist with- 
 out morals. Man has become man only through his 
 obedience to the moral law. Every neglect of the 
 moral law lowers him; every moral progress raises 
 him. And who in the face of facts will say that the 
 authority of moral conduct is not a reality in the world, 
 that God in the sense that science understands his 
 nature and being does not exist, and that religion, the 
 religion of scientific truth, is error? 
 
 Religion will undergo changes, but it can not dis- 
 
40 SCIENCE A RELIGIOUS REVELATION 
 
 appear; while it will free itself of its paganism, it 
 will evolve and grow. Religion may even lose its name, 
 for the old reactionary dogmatists may continue to 
 identify religion with their erroneous conceptions of 
 religion; and they may succeed in impressing this 
 view upon mankind. Yet the substance of religion 
 will nevertheless remain, for it is the soul of all the 
 aspirations of mankind; it is our holiest convictions 
 applied to practical life. 
 
 Religion is as indestructible as science ; for science 
 is the method of searching for the truth, and religion 
 is the enthusiasm and goodwill to live a life of truth. 
 
THE NEW ORTHODOXY 
 
 ORTHODOXY is the confidence that a certain 
 proposition is right and that all other proposi- 
 tions which contradict it are wrong. Accordingly, or- 
 thodoxy, or Tightness of opinion, is the natural aim of 
 both science and religion, and what we need most in 
 our churches, schools, and universities is genuine 
 orthodoxy. But how shall we obtain it? Is not or- 
 thodoxy, perhaps, a fata morgana, an unsubstantial 
 vision which eludes our groping hand and surrenders 
 us to the illusion of blind faith? Indeed, it has come 
 to pass in these days in which agnosticism is the 
 fashionable philosophy of the time, that a religious 
 indifference like a spiritual blight has taken a strong 
 hold of the human mind so as to discredit any kind of 
 orthodoxy, and the doctrine of the vanity of all faith, 
 be it scientific or religious, has come to be recognized 
 as the sum of all human wisdom. But the very exist- 
 ence of science plainly demonstrates that whatever 
 errors we may have inherited from the scientists and 
 the religious teachers of the past, we must never lose 
 faith in the ideal of orthodoxy, which implies that 
 there is truth and error, that the truth is one and self- 
 consistent, and that whatever conflicts with the truth 
 is error. This is no denial of the theory of the rela- 
 
42 THE NEW ORTHODOXY 
 
 tivity of knowledge, nor does it imply the assumption 
 that a man can become omniscient ; but in spite of the 
 relativity of knowledge, and in spite of the insufficiency 
 of our means of investigating all the details of the 
 immeasurable universe, we must remain assured that 
 man can discern between truth and error, he can solve 
 the various problems with which he is confronted, and 
 he can realize, at least in part, and step by step, the 
 ideal of orthodoxy. 
 
 Science has made many new discoveries in this 
 century and has established truths which widen our 
 spiritual horizon and deepen our philosophical under- 
 standing. Under the conditions it is but natural that 
 our religious beliefs, too, will have to be revised and 
 restated. They must be purified in the furnace of 
 scientific critique, and I trust that thereby they will 
 not lose in religious significance. On the contrary, 
 they can only gain in every respect; and after the 
 fusing and refining religion will be purer and shine 
 brighter than ever. 
 
 There is no need either to defend or to denounce 
 the old orthodoxy, but it is important to understand 
 the nature of the ideal of orthodoxy and to propound 
 on this basis a new conception of orthodoxy which is 
 the only possible ground of a reconciliation of re- 
 ligion with science. Agnosticism will not save us, and 
 blind faith has no warrant, but we must broaden both 
 our science and our religion until our religion becomes 
 scientific, and our science religious. On the one hand, 
 we must scientifically and fearlessly investigate the 
 
THE NEW ORTHODOXY 43 
 
 eternal psychical, social, and cosmic facts upon which 
 religion rests; and on the other hand, we must rec- 
 ognize the divinity of scientific truth, imbue it with 
 religious devotion, and seek its religious significance. 
 
 How often has religion been denounced in the 
 name of science as superstition, and how often has 
 science been pilloried in the name of religion as un- 
 godly and profane! Scientists may err and religious 
 doctrines may be wrong, but science cannot be anti- 
 religious and religion cannot be anti-scientific; for 
 what is science but the search for truth, according to 
 the best, the most reliable, and most accurate methods 
 of investigation, and what is religion but the love of 
 truth applied to practical life! 
 
 It is understood that we must be on our guard not 
 to accept the opinion of a scientist as genuine science, 
 yet we should not denounce science itself or the prin- 
 ciples of science. However much we may distrust 
 the calculation of an example, and the logical con- 
 clusions of a syllogism, we cannot question the re- 
 liability of arithmetic or the trustworthiness of logic. 
 
 Such is the narrowness of our traditional concep- 
 tions of science and religion, that both are sought 
 in their externalities. Religion is defined as a belief 
 in dogmas, or as worship of one or several gods, or 
 as the practice of ceremonies, such as incense burn- 
 ing, baptizing, and mass-reading, while science is 
 described as a mere collecting, classifying, and col- 
 lating of facts. And it is noteworthy that there are 
 scientists who misunderstand the spirit of science and 
 there are clergymen who have no idea of the meaning 
 
44 THE NEW ORTHODOXY 
 
 of religion. How is that possible? Indeed it is nat- 
 ural ; for the routine workers in both fields are so pre- 
 occupied with the exact observation of their traditional 
 practices that they become absolutely unfit to under- 
 stand the significance of their professions in the uni- 
 versal economy of mankind. 
 
 And can there be any doubt about the cause of the 
 conflict between a one-sided science and one-sided 
 religion? The cause of the conflict is on the one 
 hand the paganism of those who, forgetful of the fact 
 that dogmas are symbols, urge a belief in the letter, 
 which inextricably implicates them more and more in 
 absurdities until they begin to hate reason and decry 
 the light of science because it blinds the eyes. On 
 the other hand we are confronted with a lack of trust 
 in truth that is widely spread among the men of 
 science. There are many scientists who judge re- 
 ligious questions from their limited field of inquiry, and 
 imagine that the lower spheres of nature are the whole 
 of nature. Chemistry is expected to solve the prob- 
 lems of psychology, morality is subsumed under zool- 
 ogy, and science is identified with materialism. Man 
 because he is an animal is supposed to be a beast. 
 This is no exaggeration, for such and similar state- 
 ments have been actually made by prominent nat- 
 uralists. No wonder that where such a confusion of 
 thought prevails those who set their trust in the letter 
 of their sacred traditions will glory in the bankruptcy 
 of science as being the best evidence of the truth of re- 
 ligion, while science will fall a prey to agnosticism and 
 pessimism. No less an authority than Huxley pro- 
 
THE NEW ORTHODOXY 45 
 
 nounced the dreary theory that nature and the laws of 
 nature, including the laws that govern the social rela- 
 tions of man, are intrinsically immoral. 
 
 Here is not the place to refute the self-contradictory 
 argument of those who rejoice in the alleged bank- 
 ruptcy of science and vainly attempt by logical falla- 
 cies to prove the fallaciousness of reason. Suffice it 
 to say that the extinction of the light of science will 
 never make religion brighter. The moon is better 
 seen when the sun is hidden; but if you extinguish 
 the sun, even the moon will cease to shine. By ren- 
 dering the Logos illogical, you not only make science 
 impossible, but also change religion into the super- 
 stition of mere traditionalism. The acceptance or re- 
 jection of science means the parting path between 
 genuine religion and superstitution. 
 
 What is science that, in the name of religion, it 
 should be abused and denounced ? Science formulates 
 the facts of our experience in natural laws ; it searches 
 for and describes the eternal of nature. Thus science 
 is the embodiment of the immutable world-order of 
 the Logos that was in the beginning, of God in His 
 revelation, and truly, "this is the stone which was set 
 at naught of the builders, which is become the head 
 of the corner." (Acts iv., II.) 
 
 Science offers a description of experience from 
 which the purely subjective elements have been dis- 
 carded. Science eliminates sentiment, passions, and 
 prejudice, and undertakes to establish objective truth. 
 Science drops the human of man ; it liberates him from 
 the limitations of the senses, and reveals before his 
 
46 THE NEW ORTHODOXY 
 
 mental vision the secret inter-relation of cause and 
 effect, and the order of immutable laws. In a word, 
 science is super-human ; it is the Jacob's ladder, which 
 at its bottom touches the world of sense, while its top 
 reaches into the heaven of spirit. 
 
 Whenever God speaks to man, it is not in the 
 earthquake of bigotry or dogma, nor in the fire of 
 fanaticism, but he comes in the still small voice, and 
 the still small voice is heard in science, for science is 
 an utter surrender of what we wish to believe to a rec- 
 ognition of the actual fact. Science is a hushing of 
 all thought of self, so as to give room to a calm con- 
 templation of truth. 
 
 If you want a religion that is truly catholic, let it 
 be in accord with science. 
 
 Catholic is that which is universally acceptable, 
 and what is more catholic than science? For the 
 establishment of a catholic religion, therefore, we 
 must select the objectivity of scientific truth as the 
 cornerstone. This and nothing else is the eternal 
 Logos which is exemplified in the noble lives of the 
 prophets, and the incarnation of which constitutes the 
 sonship of God. This and nothing else is the basis of 
 religion ; and no man can lay another foundation. 
 
 Science is sometimes erroneously supposed to be 
 a human invention; it is represented as the truth of 
 man, which is contrasted with the divine revelation of 
 religious dogmas as being the truth of God. But 
 science is not of human make ; science cannot be 
 fashioned by man as he pleases! Science is stern and 
 unalterable : it is a revelation which cannot be invented 
 
THE NEW ORTHODOXY 47 
 
 but must be discovered. There is a holiness in mathe- 
 matics, and there is ethics in the multiplication table. 
 On the other hand, dogmas such as the various 
 churches have formulated as their platforms, are the 
 expressions of human opinions. They have been 
 framed by the religious leaders of the past and have 
 been accepted or rejected through majority decisions 
 of so-called ecumenical councils. They are, I grant, 
 sacred documents of what our ancestors thought to be 
 the truth ; they have been cast in the mould of mighty 
 personalities, but they are merely a reflection of the 
 spirit of their age, including all its noble aspirations 
 and shortcomings. 
 
 Our traditions and the formulations of belief, as 
 set forth in the Credos of former centuries, are un- 
 questionably important statements; they must be con- 
 sidered and reconsidered, and are in a sense author- 
 itative, as coming from men whom we respect, but 
 they art not a final decision of all problems; they 
 possess no absolute authority and can bind neither 
 our reason nor our conscience. It is our sacred duty 
 to revise them again and again in the light of that 
 direct revelation of truth which is always and con- 
 stantly accessible to man. Man can find salvation 
 only through a scrupulous self-examination and a right 
 comprehension of the events of life. 
 
 If you find traditional formulations of faith accept- 
 able, let them stand on the same principle as scientific 
 truths. Scientific truths are always liable to revision, 
 and no scientist makes the slightest objection to hav- 
 ing his propositions revised. Why should theologians 
 
48 THE NEW ORTHODOXY 
 
 do so ? Scientific truths once rightly formulated need 
 shun no criticism, since upon re-examination they will 
 be corroborated ; and, if they be misunderstood or for- 
 gotten, they can be rediscovered. 
 
 Science, it is true, appears as an enemy of the old 
 dogmatism, which to the unthinking made religion 
 easy. Science discredits blind faith and rejects the 
 trust in the letter. It may destroy many long-cherished 
 prejudices that have become dear to us. But if a 
 dogma cannot stand scientific criticism, if it is not 
 true, how can it comfort us ? Let a dogma that is un- 
 true go, and have trust in truth. The truth, what- 
 ever it be, let us be assured, will be the best. Truth 
 is better than the most beautiful dream, and, if truth 
 appears bitter at first sight, let us be patient. If 
 science destroys, it is sure to give us something better. 
 
 While dogmas, viz., the platforms of the various 
 churches, are man-made, we should not forget that 
 they nevertheless reflect the truth of a revelation that 
 is superhuman. They may not be true in their letter, 
 yet they are full of meaning. The truths of this mean- 
 ing appear in a new light with every advance of civil- 
 ization and will be better understood at every stage 
 reached by science. Let us always bear in mind that 
 religion, although it must be one with science, is not 
 science; the province of religion is the broad field of 
 practical life, and its aim is to teach moral truths to 
 the masses, not by proving them in logical deductions, 
 but by explaining them in allegories, and the symbolic 
 nature of ecclesiastical dogmas has never been doubted 
 except by the most narrow-minded dogmatists. The 
 
THE NEW ORTHODOXY 49 
 
 church actually calls the confession of faith a "sym- 
 bolum,"* and Christ declared that he spoke in par- 
 ables only. It is a perversion of the fundamental 
 meaning of our religious revelation to demand a belief 
 in the letter where confessedly from the beginning 
 nothing but a symbolic expression of a deeper mystery 
 was offered. 
 
 Neither the prophets, nor Christ, nor the apostles 
 ever intended to set up a system of revelation that 
 should be contrary to science. It is true that they 
 proclaimed many truths which the sages of their time 
 did not grasp — love of enemies and charity; but a 
 deeper comprehension of the facts of life proved that, 
 upon the whole, their ethical injunctions were right in 
 spite of their apparent impracticability. 
 
 Let us not be afraid to analyze religion. Do not 
 think that if the nature of the symbol is explained, 
 nothing will be left. If the myth is understood, we 
 become acquainted with the truth itself, which we 
 
 * The word symbolum (<ri'yU|3a\\oj/> is derived from the Greek 
 <TV/xl3d\\ei.i>,to throw together, meaning the fitting together of the two 
 pieces of a ring or amulet broken in twain. There was in ancient 
 Greece the institution of mutual hospitality among certain families in 
 various cities, which was hereditary. A stranger who came to Athens 
 from another Greek community went to the house of that Athenian 
 citizen whose ancestors had entered into a bond of hospitality with his 
 own ancestors; and there he presented, for the sake of identification 
 and legitimation, the broken piece of his symbolum. When it fitted 
 to the other piece that was in the hands of his hosr he was recognized 
 as a friend and welcomed as a guest. Thus, symbolum originally 
 denoted a mark or sign by which friends could recognize one another, 
 and came to mean a ticket or a check, and also the watchword of 
 soldiers. The early Christians used the word in the sense of token by 
 which to recognize one another. He who knew the Christian symbolum 
 by heart was, in times of persecution, freely admitted as a friend to 
 their meetings; and it is natural that the symbolum in the religious 
 conviction of the early Christians was expressed in those very words 
 and allegories which, in accord with the established tradition, seemed 
 to them the most adequate expression of the truth which they believed. 
 
50 THE NEW ORTHODOXY 
 
 formerly had merely seen as through a glass, darkly, 
 in the tinsel decking of poetic imagery. 
 
 Authority is sometimes contrasted with argument, 
 and the weight of a name is proffered to check the 
 boldness of progressive thought. But there is no sense 
 in speaking of authority as opposed to reason; for if 
 by authority is meant the confidence which we have 
 in a person, what is it but our respect for the sound- 
 ness of his judgment? Indeed, there is no authority 
 of person; all authority is ultimately the authority of 
 provable truth; it is the authority of science, and 
 rests upon the superpersonal authority of the divine 
 Logos. 
 
 To praise authority at the expense of science and 
 reason is like accepting a greenback and repudiating 
 the gold which the greenback represents. An unre- 
 deemable greenback is a mere scrap of paper, and 
 authority not based upon experience that can critically 
 be tested and verified by renewed experience, is a mere 
 usurpation of power. There is no genuine authority 
 which when analyzed is not reducible to experience, 
 and as science is systematized experience, we should 
 think that there is no sense in the contrast between 
 science and authority. 
 
 While we must insist on the recognition of the 
 authority of science, we should not be blind to the 
 great preference of religion in having been the first 
 to point out that justice is more powerful than vio- 
 lence, and charity stronger than vengeance. At pres- 
 ent, religion being naturally conservative is lagging 
 behind science, but there was a time when science 
 
THE NEW ORTHODOXY 51 
 
 was lagging behind religion. Religious prophets have 
 in former ages propounded moral ideals, sternly de- 
 manding their practical application, the rationality of 
 which the scientists of the time were not sufficiently 
 advanced to prove. Religion anticipated many moral 
 truths which modern science is only now beginning 
 to understand. When commending science as the 
 ultimate criterion of truth, let us not forget the great 
 service which religion rendered while science was 
 still in its swaddling clothes ! 
 
 To sum up : any faith that is irreconcilable with 
 science is doomed. He who rejects science blights 
 the life of religion. For the spirit of genuine re- 
 ligion is the same as the spirit of genuine science. 
 Science is a divine revelation. Contempt for science 
 and a deliberate suppression of reason is an intellec- 
 tual sin ; it is the sin against the spirit which cannot 
 be forgiven, but must, if persisted in, ultimately lead 
 to eternal perdition. 
 
 Therefore, what we need most dearly is ortho- 
 doxy, but let our orthodoxy be genuine. 
 
THE LATE PROFESSOR ROMANES'S 
 THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 ALL the publications of the Open Court Pub- 
 lishing Company, purely theoretical though they 
 may appear to be, are brought out with a very prac- 
 tical end in view, which is nothing less than the re- 
 construction of religion upon the broad basis of mod- 
 ern science. When we publish scientific works, like 
 Ribot's psychological inquiries, Max Miiller's exposi- 
 tions of the nature of language and of thought, Ernst 
 Mach's History of Mechanics and his Popular Lectures 
 on the methods of scientific research, we do so because 
 we trust that the spread of sound science is the best 
 and most effective propaganda of true religion. We 
 acquired from Prof. George John Romanes the right 
 of publishing the American edition of his book, Dar- 
 win and After Darwin, because we recognize in the 
 doctrine of evolution one of the most important and 
 fundamental religious truths, upon the basis of which 
 the old traditional dogmas will have to be revised and 
 radically remodelled ; and we also brought out the 
 American edition of the same scientist's posthumous 
 Thoughts on Religion. It is this latter book to which 
 the present essay is devoted, for it seems necessary to 
 explain why we should promote the circulation of a 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 53 
 
 book which in many important points differs from our 
 own solution of the religious problem. 
 
 In our opinion, science and religion are not two 
 separate spheres which must be kept apart lest the 
 one should interfere with the other ; but, on the con- 
 trary, both form integral parts of man's spiritual being 
 and are closely interwoven as the web and woof of our 
 souls. Science is the search for truth, including the 
 results of the search ; it is the best recognition of the 
 truth according to the most accurate and painstaking 
 methods at our command ; and religion is the endeavor 
 to lead a life in agreement with the truth. What is 
 religion but truth in its moral bearings upon practical 
 life! 
 
 In opposition to this standpoint the Thoughts on 
 Religion by Professor Romanes are antiscientific and 
 agnostic; indeed, they stand in certain respects so 
 much in contrast to the labor of his life, as to appear 
 a disavowal of his former position. 
 
 While our religious convictions are quite definite 
 and outspoken we do not propound them dogmatically. 
 We simply submit them to the world for considera- 
 tion; we solicit criticism from all quarters, because 
 we trust that they can stand the severest strictures. 
 However, supposing they could be proved to be erro- 
 neous, we shall not hesitate to publicly confess our 
 errors; for it is not our aim to propagate our views 
 because they are ours, but because we believe that 
 they are true. If it be right that we must in religious 
 questions sacrifice our intellect and cease thinking, let 
 the truth prevail. 
 
54 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 When the doctrine of evolution first dawned upon 
 Romanes, it came to him, not as a religious idea, but 
 as a revolutionary doctrine, which was slowly but 
 radically destroying the very basis of his most sacred 
 belief ; and in order to understand the struggles which 
 at that time distracted the mind of the young scientist, 
 we ought to bear in mind that he was in his inmost 
 nature not only deeply religious, but even uncommonly 
 reverent and pious. Judging from his essay on Prayer, 
 which he wrote in 1873, when still a youth, and by 
 which he gained the Burney Prize at Cambridge, he 
 was possessed of a childlike trust in the Lord, his 
 Creator and Heavenly Father, whom he regarded as 
 governing the world by general laws. Would a youth 
 so settled in his convictions give up his faith when 
 confronted with scientific conceptions irreconcilable 
 with the errors of his traditional religion ? How could 
 he help it? Science is not of human make; science is 
 the superhuman power of the silent voice of the Holy 
 Spirit, who reveals himself to mankind in an accu- 
 mulative revelation, and no one can withdraw himself 
 from its irresistible influence. 
 
 Romanes had thoroughly imbibed the rigid defini- 
 tions of the traditional dogmatism. In order to sub- 
 stantiate the so-called orthodox conception of Chris- 
 tianity our ecclesiastical instructors have gotten into 
 the habit of telling us again and again that there is no 
 religion save such as is theistic, and that there is no 
 theism, save such as is a belief in a personal God, and 
 a personal God means a distinct individual being with 
 an ego-consciousness like that found in man, only on 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 55 
 
 an infinitely higher plane — a view which we call an- 
 thropotheism. Accepting explanations of religion, 
 such as these, it was natural that Romanes, as soon 
 as he became convinced of the errors of his narrow 
 church-theism, should fall a prey to a desolate skepti- 
 cism, and already in 1876, if not sooner, he wrote a 
 book entitled A Candid Examination of Theism by 
 Physicus* which analyzes the crude conception of the 
 traditional God-idea, and finds it wanting. 
 
 We quote the following passage from the book, 
 which is sufficient evidence of the author's sincerity: 
 
 "And now, in conclusion, I feel it is desirable to state that 
 any antecedent bias with regard to Theism which I individ- 
 ually possess is unquestionably on the side of traditional be- 
 liefs. It is therefore with the utmost sorrow that I find my- 
 self compelled to accept the conclusions here worked out ; and 
 nothing would have induced me to publish them, save the 
 strength of my conviction that it is the duty of every member 
 of society to give his fellows the benefit of his labors for what- 
 ever they may be worth. Just as I am confident that truth 
 must in the end be the most profitable for the race, so I am 
 persuaded that every individual endeavor if unbiased and 
 sincere, ought without hesitation to be made the common 
 property of all men, no matter in what direction the results of 
 its promulgation may appear to tend. And so far as the 
 ruination of individual happiness is concerned, no one can 
 have a more lively perception than myself of the possibly dis- 
 astrous tendency of my work. So far as I am individually 
 concerned, the result of this analysis has been to show that, 
 whether I regard the problem of Theism on the lower plane of 
 strictly relative probability, or on the higher plane of purely 
 formal considerations, it equally becomes my obvious duty to 
 
 *Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, ed. 1914. The book first 
 appeared in 1878 (at Trubner's), and we read in the preface that it 
 was written several years before, but had been left unpublished. 
 
56 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 stifle all belief of the kind which I conceive to be the noblest, 
 and to discipline my intellect with regard to this matter into 
 an attitude of the purest scepticism. And forasmuch as I am 
 far from being able to agree with those who affirm that the 
 twilight doctrine of the 'new faith' is a desirable substitute 
 for the waning splendor of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to 
 confess that with this virtual negation of God the universe 
 to me has lost its soul of loveliness ; and although from hence- 
 forth the precept to 'work while it is day' will doubtless but 
 gain an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning 
 of the words that 'the night cometh when no man can work/ 
 yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the 
 appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed 
 which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as 
 now I find it, — at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to 
 avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible. 
 For whether it be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently 
 advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or whether it 
 be due to the memory of those sacred associations which to 
 me at least were the sweetest that life has given, I cannot 
 but feel that for me, and for others who think as I do, there 
 is a dreadful truth in those words of Hamilton, — Philosophy 
 having become a meditation, not merely of death, but of anni- 
 hilation, the precept know thyself has become transformed 
 into the terrific oracle to (Edipus : 'Mayest thou ne'er know 
 the truth of what thou art.' " 
 
 While Romanes pursued his scientific work un- 
 swervingly, completing works on The Mental Evolu- 
 tion in Man, The Mental Evolution in Animals and 
 Animal Intelligence, and beginning his Darwin and 
 After Darwin, he wrote several essays bearing on re- 
 ligion. They are : 
 
 1. ''Mind and Motion." A lecture, published in 
 The Contemporary Review, July, 1885, p. 74. 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 57 
 
 2. "The World as an Eject," published in The 
 Contemporary Review in 1886, p. 44. 
 
 3. "The Evidence of Design in Nature," a paper 
 read before the Aristotelian Society in 1889, and pub- 
 lished in its proceedings as a contribution to a Sym- 
 posium. 
 
 4. Three articles on the "Influence of Science 
 Upon Religion," written in 1889, but remaining un- 
 published for unknown reasons. 
 
 In these essays Professor Romanes takes an un- 
 equivocal stand on the ground of monism, yet when 
 he comes to the question of theism he assumes an at- 
 titude of agnosticism which does not venture to decide 
 the problem but "leaves a clear field of choice be- 
 tween theism and atheism." The secret reason of his 
 position which probably was hidden from his own 
 mind was in our opinion this : he felt instinctively that 
 there was some truth in theism, yet he could not dis- 
 cover by his reasoning powers what it was. He saw 
 the errors of the narrow church-theism, but he did 
 not venture to broaden his idea of God so as to con- 
 form it to his better scientific insight. 
 
 The agnostic reserve of Professor Romanes's posi- 
 tion might have easily appeared to his readers as an 
 unwillingness to decide a dilemma, which, whatever 
 horn he chose, could only involve him in troubles 
 of various kinds ; but the fact is that he was sorely 
 perplexed in his own mind. On the religious problem 
 all his sympathies were enlisted against his rational 
 faculties, and he saw no other hope for the defense of 
 the faith which he so dearly but vainly longed for, 
 
58 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 than by denying his rational faculties the right to have 
 anything to say in the matter, and this, his attitude, 
 he called, in distinction to the Spencerian agnosti- 
 cism, "pure agnosticism." 
 
 Between the lines of Romanes's Thoughts on Reli- 
 gion we can see the distress of his soul. What a poor 
 evidence is agnosticism! It is like a straw to which 
 a drowning man desperately but vainly clings. For 
 it goes without saying that agnosticism of every color 
 is as much favorable to dogmatic Christianity, to Mo- 
 hammedanism, Brahmanism, theosophy, and mysticism 
 of any description, as to Freethought and Nihilism. 
 
 With such sentiments Professor Romanes pon- 
 dered in the last year of his life on the problems of 
 theism, faith, free will, the existence and origin of 
 evil, causation and creation, regeneration, revelation, 
 the miracles, Christian dogmas, such as the Trinity, 
 and Incarnation, the fall of Adam, and Christian de- 
 monology. The notes which he wrote down on these 
 topics a few months before his death were originally 
 intended to counteract or offset in a measure, to his 
 own or other people's satisfaction, the propositions 
 contained in the Candid Examination of Theism by 
 Physicus. He expected to work out a book on the 
 subject which should appear under the title A Candid 
 Examination of Religion by Metaphysicus, for he had 
 found in the metaphysical x the sole place of safety 
 for the God of Christianity. After his death the notes 
 were handed to the Rev. Charles Gore, Canon of 
 Westminster and a friend of the deceased scientist, 
 who was to do with them what he thought best. Canon 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 59 
 
 Gore decided upon their publication together with 
 other materials and his own editorial comments, and 
 the book bears the title "Thoughts on Religion, by the 
 late George John Romanes, Edited by Charles Gore, 
 M. A., Canon of Westminster."* 
 The book contains : 
 
 1. Two essays by Romanes on the "Influence of 
 Science Upon Religion," written in 1891, the third 
 essay being omitted, because, as the editor declares, 
 "Romanes's view of the relation between science and 
 faith in revealed religion are better and more maturely 
 expressed in the notes." (pp. 37-88). 
 
 2. The Notes for a work on A Candid Examina- 
 tion of Religion (pp. 91-183). 
 
 3. Editorial Comments. Both parts open with 
 editorial prefaces (pp. 5-33, p. 105, and pp. 91-96), 
 and the whole book closes with a "Note by the Edi- 
 tor" (p. 184). 
 
 Mr. Gore claims that "both Essays and Notes rep- 
 resent the same tendency of a mind from a position of 
 unbelief in the Christian revelation toward one of be- 
 lief in it" (p. 6) ; and although Romanes's conviction 
 cannot be described as "a position of settled ortho- 
 doxy," although he did not recover "the activity or 
 habit of faith," we are told (on p. 184) that he yet 
 "returned before his death to that full, deliberate 
 communion with the Church of Jesus Christ which he 
 had for so many years been conscientiously compelled 
 to forego." 
 
 *The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago and London. 
 
60 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 There are people who think that there is no salva- 
 tion except in the church. For their benefit be it 
 stated that such a man as Professor Romanes was in 
 the darkest days of his boldest skepticism a better 
 Christian than many a minister and preacher who 
 finds no difficulty in avowing allegiance to the thirty- 
 nine articles of the Anglican Church. 
 
 We attach to the book a great importance, for it 
 proves the depth of Romanes's religious sentiment. 
 There may be a doubt whether it was wise and just to 
 publish the notes — just toward the sacred memory of 
 the deceased ; and we feel sure that many friends of the 
 late Professor Romanes will regret the appearance 
 of the booklet, for the notes are quite unfinished and 
 incoherent. Indeed, the looseness of argumentation 
 indicates that their author, when he penned them, 
 was no longer at his best. Nevertheless, we believe 
 Canon Gore was right in not withholding them from 
 the world, because Romanes was great enough even 
 for his weaker productions to command a general in- 
 terest, the more so as they throw a searchlight into 
 the most secret recesses of his innermost soul; and it 
 is of interest to us to know not only how a man like 
 Romanes argued but also what he longed for and on 
 what side his sympathies were most strongly enlisted. 
 Taking the notes as they stand, and bearing in mind 
 that their author's life was cut short before he could 
 revise them and work his way out from the narrow- 
 ness of agnosticism into a clear comprehension of the 
 glory of true religion, we take them as witnesses of 
 Romanes's deep love of God, whom he still harbored 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 61 
 
 in his heart after his mind through scientific investi- 
 gations had lost belief in his existence. 
 
 We can now understand what an abyss of desola- 
 tion lies in the question which Romanes uttered in 
 the concluding chapter, page 418, of the first volume 
 of Darwin and After Darwin, "Where is now thy 
 God?" And his answer bids us be resigned. He 
 says : "And when the cry of Reason pierces the heart 
 of Faith, it remains for Faith to answer now as she 
 has always answered before — and answered with that 
 trust which is at once her beauty and her life — Verily, 
 thou art a God that hidest thyself." 
 
 Concerning Professor Romanes's progress from a 
 position of unbelief toward one of belief, we are un- 
 able to discover any evidence of great consequence. 
 For the agnostic position as the sole refuge for believ- 
 ers is already indicated in the Candid Examination of 
 Theism. Even here Romanes says : 
 
 "Although the latter deductions have clearly shown the 
 existence of Deity to be superfluous in a scientific sense, the 
 formal considerations in question have no less clearly opened 
 up beyond the sphere of science a possible locus for the exist- 
 ence of Deity ; so that if there are any facts supplied by ex- 
 perience for which the atheistic deductions appear insufficient 
 to account, we are still free to account for them in a relative 
 sense by the hypothesis of Theism. And, it may be urged, we 
 do find such an unexplained residuum in the correlation of 
 general laws in the production of cosmic harmony." 
 
 On the other hand, instead of retracting his opin- 
 ions in the Notes, Romanes expressly retained them, 
 only proposing several important modifications and 
 limitations. While he feels that "further thought 
 
62 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 has enabled" him "to detect serious errors or rather 
 oversights," in his book he still thinks "that from the 
 premises there laid down the conclusions result in 
 due logical sequence." He continues, "as a matter 
 of mere ratiocination, I am not likely ever to detect 
 any serious flaws, especially as this has not been done 
 by anybody else during the many years of its exist- 
 ence." 
 
 Romanes finds two faults with his former work: 
 undue confidence in merely syllogistic conclusions, 
 and a lack of care in examining the foundations of his 
 criticism. He says: 
 
 "The metaphysics of Christianity may be all false in fact, 
 and yet the spirit of Christianity may be true in substance, 
 i. e., it may be the highest 'good gift from above' as yet given 
 to man." 
 
 How true ! But granted that it is true, should we 
 not rouse ourselves to investigate what is the spirit of 
 Christianity so that we may do away with its false 
 metaphysics? Professor Romanes turns for help to 
 the wrong door. Agnosticism, even Professor Ro- 
 manes's "pure agnosticism," will never make us take 
 heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and 
 of the Sadducees; and agnosticism, if we are willing 
 to believe, makes us credulous, while if we are un- 
 willing to believe, makes us indifferent, for what is 
 the use of our troubles if the truth lies in some super- 
 scientific field, where we can never hope to approach 
 it? 
 
 Passing by the comments on Adam and the Fall, 
 the blindness of reason with regard to the doctrines 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 63 
 
 of the Incarnation and the Trinity and similar utter- 
 ances — topics the serious discussion of which we 
 should not expect from the author of Darwin and 
 After Darwin — we think that the weakest part of 
 Professor Romanes's arguments are his contradictory 
 applications of his principle of pure agnosticism. In 
 one place he complains about "professed" agnostics 
 who refused to go to a famous spiritualist, or to test 
 the art of a mind-reader, and he says of them that 
 they violated their philosophy by their conduct (page 
 109), yet when dogmatic questions appear, such as 
 whether Jesus was the son of God, he argues that we 
 are, qua pure agnostics, logically forbidden to touch 
 them (p. 106 and passim). 
 
 After all, Professor Romanes makes less use of his 
 agnosticism than appears consistent and attempts a 
 reconciliation between religion and science. He says: 
 
 "I intend to take science and religion in their present highly- 
 developed states as such and show that on a systematic exam- 
 ination of the latter by the methods of the former* the 'con- 
 flict' between the two may be not merely 'reconciled' as regards 
 the highest generalities of each, but entirely abolished in all 
 matters of detail which can be regarded as of any great 
 importance." 
 
 The principle of deciding the conflict between sci- 
 ence and religion by "a systematic examination of 
 the latter by the methods of the former" is the funda- 
 mental contention of that aspiration which we have 
 defined as the "Religion of Science." In full agree- 
 ment with the maxim of the Religion of Science, Ro- 
 
 * Italics are ours. 
 
64 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 manes insists upon theists abandoning all the assump- 
 tions of which they have been guilty, saying : 
 
 "True religion is indeed learning her lesson that something 
 is wrong in her method of fighting, and many of her soldiers 
 are now waking up to the fact that it is here that her error 
 lies, — as in past times they woke up to see the error of deny- 
 ing the movement of the earth, the antiquity of the earth, the 
 origin of species by evolution, etc." 
 
 The only possible condition to fighting, says Ro- 
 manes, lies in the distinction between the natural and 
 the supernatural, — a distinction that has always by 
 both sides been regarded as sound (p. 121). He now 
 proposes to efface the boundary line that separates 
 the supernatural from the natural and says : ''Once 
 grant that the supernatural is 'natural' and all pos- 
 sible ground of dispute is removed."* 
 
 This is the reconciliation between religion and 
 science which we propose, and it may be formulated 
 in analogy with Christ's words : "Render unto Science 
 the things that are Science's!" 
 * * * 
 
 There are many more things that ought to be said, 
 but they are of less importance, and we can only 
 lightly touch upon some of them in a few disconnected 
 remarks. 
 
 We believe that Romanes's distinction between 
 Huxley's and Spencer's agnosticism is neither clear 
 
 *Compare on the "supernatural" such passages in The Monist edi- 
 torials as Vol. V. No. 1, p. 99: "We deny the existence of the super- 
 natural in a dualistic sense; but suppose we call such higher features of 
 nature as appear in man's ethical aspirations hyperphysical or super- 
 natural because they rise above the lower and purely physical elements 
 of the universe, we must confess that the supernatural lies hidden in 
 the natural and is destined to grow from it according to the cosmic law 
 of existence." 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 65 
 
 nor correct (p. 108). Professor Huxley's agnosticism 
 is not what Romanes defines it, viz., "an attitude of 
 reasoned ignorance touching everything that lies be- 
 yond the sphere of sense-perception." Mathematics 
 lies beyond the sphere of sense-perception, yet Hux- 
 ley does not extend his agnosticism to mathematical 
 methods or conclusions. 
 
 The fact that St. Paul's epistles are regarded by 
 the critics as genuine is mentioned three times (pp. 
 155, 168, 169), and it is claimed that this is "enough 
 to show the belief in Christ's contemporaries" (p. 169). 
 Indeed! But what of it? Have we not sufficient 
 evidence of the belief of our own contemporaries in 
 the various Christs who have risen among us? 
 Schweinfurth and Teed are living in our midst, and the 
 authenticity of their publications cannot be doubted. 
 The important question is not whether or no Paul 
 wrote his epistles, but whether the ethics of the epistles 
 is good or bad; and, granting that Paul said many 
 noble things, I yet wish to see the orthodox clergyman 
 who would venture to defend Paul's low, not to say 
 vulgar, conception of marriage !* 
 
 Romanes speaks of "some superadded faculties of 
 our mind," explaining them in one place as "the 
 
 *The sole motive for marriage which St. Paul proposes is, 'It is 
 better to marry than to burn.' The holiest instincts that would induce 
 men and women to join their fates in a sacred alliance are utterly- 
 ignored. Nothing is said of the mutual sympathy and friendship that 
 bind soul to soul much more closely that sexual appetites. No consid- 
 eration is taken of the children to be born, and the very lowest desires 
 alone are given as an excuse for entering into the state of matrimony, 
 the holiness of which St. Paul does not understand. His view of mar- 
 riage proves that he had no right conception of the ethics of human 
 sex-relations. We admire St. Paul in many respects, but we must say 
 that his view of marriage is un-Christian; it is unworthy of his sacred 
 office as an apostle: it is a blemish on our Bible. 
 
66 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 heart and the will," as the "religious instinct," and 
 other moral sentiments, and also as "spiritual intui- 
 tion," or an "organ of spiritual discernment." He 
 glories in the "infinitude of mystery sufficient to satisfy 
 the most exacting mystic." We say that the "super- 
 added faculties," which are such as man's conscience, 
 his religious aspirations and moral ideals, do not lie 
 without the pale of scientific investigation. On the 
 contrary, the better we understand their nature, the 
 greater is their chance of nobler development and 
 purification. 
 
 Such phrases as "first cause" and "infinite mind," 
 which are word-combinations without sense, abound 
 unduly in the notes and help not a little to increase 
 the difficulties which present themselves to the mind 
 of Romanes and which have become sufficiently be- 
 wildering through the sensitiveness of his religious 
 nature.* 
 
 Romanes gave a great deal of his thought to the 
 problem of the existence of pain in the world. How 
 is it possible that God, if he be good, can allow his 
 creatures to be hopelessly exposed to "hideously 
 cruel" and terrible sufferings? Romanes says in his 
 second essay on "The Influence of Science Upon 
 Religion," after speaking of the agonies of a rabbit 
 panting in the iron jaws of a spring trap: 
 
 "What are we to think of a Being who, with yet higher 
 faculties of thought and knowledge, and with an unlimited 
 
 * For an exposition of the errors which lie concealed in the phrase 
 "first cause," see Primer of Philosophy, pp. 146-147, and Fundamental 
 Problems, p. 8S et seq. As to "infinite mind," see Homilies of Science, 
 p. 102 et seq. 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 67 
 
 choice of means to secure His ends, has contrived untold thou- 
 sands of mechanisms no less diabolical? In short, so far as 
 Nature can teach us, or 'observation can extend,' it does ap- 
 pear that the scheme, if it is a scheme, is the product of a 
 Mind which differs from the more highly evolved type of 
 human mind in that it is immensely more intellectual without 
 being nearly so moral." 
 
 The problem of the existence of pain in the world 
 is an unsolvable mystery on the hypothesis of the 
 traditional theism, and no theory of "probation" can 
 satisfactorily explain the difficulty. But Romanes 
 declares that, after all, we are not bound to adopt the 
 idea of a "carpenter-God," as Mr. S. Alexander calls 
 the anthropomorphic notion of a Creator which im- 
 plies that the world-order is a "scheme." 
 
 As to God's responsibility for pain, we should bear 
 in mind that one of the most obvious features of an- 
 thropomorphism in the God-idea is the attribute of 
 "moral goodness." In the same way that God is not 
 an individual being, that he is not a huge ego or per- 
 son like ourselves, but a superpersonal omnipresence, 
 so he is neither moral nor good nor ethical; for God 
 is the standard of goodness ; he is the norm, con- 
 formity to which is the condition of ethics ; he is the 
 ultimate authority for all moral conduct. He is neither 
 moral nor immoral, but unmoral, or let us say "supra- 
 moral." If God were the carpenter of the world, he 
 would be responsible for its laws and arrangements, 
 including all the cruelties implied by them, and he 
 could not escape the condemnation of immorality. 
 
 Romanes has found the right answer when he says : 
 
68 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 "For aught that we can tell to the contrary, it may be quite 
 as 'anthropomorphic' a notion to attribute morality to God as 
 it would be to attribute those capacities for sensuous enjoy- 
 ment with which the Greeks endowed their divinities. The 
 Deity may be as high above the one as the other — or rather 
 perhaps we may say as much eternal to the one as to the other. 
 Without being supramoral, and still less immoral, He may be 
 un-moral; our ideas of morality may have no meaning as 
 applied to Him." 
 
 Such was Romanes's pious disposition of mind 
 that, if it ever had been possible to defend the old 
 traditional dogmatism before the tribunal of reason, 
 he would have done so, and we can repeat of Romanes 
 without hesitation the quotation from Virgil, which 
 D. F. Strauss applied to Schleiermacher : 
 
 "Si Pergamum dextra defendi posset 
 Hac certe defensa fuisset!" 
 
 * * * 
 There is one more point to be mentioned. Pro- 
 fessor Romanes adopted the idea so often proclaimed 
 in the pulpit, that "no one can 'believe' in God, or 
 a fortiori in Christ, without also a severe effort of 
 will," and he adds: 
 
 "Yet the desire is not strong enough to sustain the will in 
 perpetual action, so as to make the continual sacrifices which 
 Christianity entails. Perhaps the hardest of these sacrifices 
 to an intelligent man is that of his own intellect. At least I 
 am certain that this is so in my own case." 
 
 Romanes rummages his brain for arguments to 
 silence the voice of reason. He says (p. 167) : 
 
 "The force of Butler's argument about our being incom- 
 petent judges is being more and more increased. 
 
 "The unbiassed answer of pure agnosticism ought reason- 
 ably to be, in the words of John Hunter, 'Do not think ; try.' " 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 69 
 
 And he tried ! What tortures this man must have 
 suffered in his eagerness not to think but to believe! 
 His religious struggles may have been the physical 
 cause of his premature death ; for distraction of mind 
 is more injurious than overwork. And after all he 
 was anxious to attempt the impossible. We read on 
 pp. 132-133: 
 
 "Yet I cannot bring myself so much as to make a venture in 
 the direction of faith. For instance, regarded from one point 
 of view it seems reasonable enough that Christianity should 
 have enjoined the doing of the doctrine as a necessary condi- 
 tion to ascertaining (i. e., 'believing') its truth. But from 
 another, and my more habitual point of view, it seems almost 
 an affront to reason to make any such 'fool's experiment,' — 
 just as to some scientific men it seems absurd and childish to 
 expect them to investigate the 'superstitious' follies of modern 
 spiritualism. Even the simplest act of will in regard to re- 
 ligion — that of prayer — has not been performed by me for at 
 least a quarter of a century, simply because it has seemed so 
 impossible to pray, as it were, hypothetically, that much as I 
 have always desired to be able to pray, I cannot will the 
 attempt."* 
 
 Is it not a shame on our church dogmatism to let 
 a man like Romanes, an intellectual giant, torture him- 
 self on the rack in efforts to conform to the religion 
 which he had been taught to love with all the fervor 
 of his soul?f Professor Romanes imagined that God 
 
 * Kant condemns "the prosopopoeia," or face-making, of "hypo- 
 thetical" prayer as hypocrisy, and says: "The consequence of this is 
 that he who has made great moral progress ceases to pray, for honesty 
 is one of his principal maxims. And further, that those whom one sur- 
 prises in prayer are ashamed of themselves." 
 
 t How true is what Mach says of the conflict between science and 
 theology! In his Science of Mechanics, p. 446, we read: "It would 
 be a great mistake to suppose that the phrase 'warfare of science' is a 
 correct description of its general historic attitude toward religion, that 
 the only repression of intellectual development has come from priests, 
 
70 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 requested from him the sacrifice of his intellect, and 
 what was he not willing to do for God's sake! As 
 Abraham went out to sacrifice his only son Isaac, so 
 Romanes seriously tried to slaughter his reason on 
 the altar of faith. 
 
 My blood begins to boil at the thought, for I re- 
 member my own experiences and the dark hours of 
 despair in which I had, against my own will, lost my 
 God and my religion, and felt all the miseries of hell. 
 However willing I was to sacrifice my vanity, my ego- 
 ism, my pride, my pleasures and joys, my self and 
 my fondest hopes, I was yet unable to surrender my 
 better knowledge, and only after many hours of sore 
 trial did I work my way out again into the glorious 
 liberty of the children of God. I came to the conclu- 
 sion that no such sacrifice is expected of us as a sur- 
 render of our intellect; for our intellect is but the re- 
 flection of God's nature in our soul. Man's reason is 
 the light of his life; it is a product of that world- 
 logos which science traces in all natural laws, and it 
 is the seal of man's divinity which constitutes his 
 similarity to God. 
 
 What is the lesson of Romanes's Thoughts on 
 Religion? 
 
 and that if their hands had been held off, growing science would have 
 shot up with stupendous velocity. No doubt external opposition did have 
 to be fought; and the battle with it was no child's play. But investi- 
 gators have had another struggle on their hands, and by no means an 
 easy one, the struggle with their own preconceived ideas." Professor 
 Romanes is the most modern instance of the severity of the conflict 
 which often distracts the soul of a scientist. Oh, what a noble mind 
 was there o'erthrown — and by what? By his devotion to dogmas, the 
 spirit of which he felt to be true, and the allegorical garb of which he 
 knew to be full of errors. 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 71 
 
 Romanes's posthumous work is a mene tekel which 
 reminds us of the importance of the religious prob- 
 lem. We cannot and must not leave it unsettled in 
 worldly indifference. We must attend to it and in- 
 vestigate it bravely and conscientiously. We can no 
 longer denounce reason or silence our intellectual 
 needs, for it is God himself who speaks in the voice 
 of reason ; and the progress of science is his most 
 glorious revelation, which ecclesiasticism cannot 
 smother. Indeed, the suppression of reason is the 
 sin against the Holy Ghost which cannot be forgiven 
 but will inevitably lead, if persisted in, to eternal per- 
 dition. 
 
 The sad case of Professor Romanes's religious 
 struggles reminds us of the significant words of the 
 late Field-Marshal von Moltke who, with reference to 
 dogmatic religion, says in the posthumous, deeply 
 religious Thoughts of Comfort, which contain his con- 
 fession of faith: "I am afraid that the zealot in the 
 pulpit, who will persuade where he cannot convince, 
 preaches Christians out of the church." 
 
 Our church Christianity is not as yet free from 
 paganism. By paganism we understand a belief in 
 the letter of parables or allegorical dogmas to the 
 detriment of their spirit ; and tradition and habit com- 
 bine to make our theologians worship the letter that 
 killeth. A one-sided training warps their judgment. 
 Their notions of God, the sacraments, miracles, in- 
 spiration, prayer, Christ's sonship, and other religious 
 ideas are, as a rule, more pagan than they themselves 
 are aware. The constitutions of most churches are 
 
72 ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 
 
 so formulated as to make a belief in the literal mean- 
 ing of symbols the test of orthodoxy, and Christians 
 are urged to set their trust upon myths. For the 
 higher education of the clergy we would propose, 
 therefore, that every theologian should study at least 
 one of the natural sciences or mathematics. It would 
 be the best way, perhaps the only way, to teach them 
 the sternness of truth and to dispel their anthropo- 
 morphic notions of God. 
 
 The narrowness of ecclesiasticism has estranged 
 many noble minds from religion. Let our clergy see 
 to it that room be made for intellectuality in our 
 churches ; and the light of science will purify the dark 
 corners in which the superstitions of past ages still 
 continue to exercise their baneful influence. 
 
 Romanes has much to say of the inner voice, in- 
 tuition, and inspiration, but whatever form the sub- 
 jective instincts of our religious nature may take, they 
 possess merely preliminary power of decision and have 
 no authority in comparison with objectively demon- 
 strable truth. The verdict of conscience is very valu- 
 able, because it frequently reveals deep moral truth 
 in a prophet's vision : yet is it neither absolute nor 
 reliable, for it must seek its ratification before the 
 tribunal of science. So far as human evolution has 
 gone, science alone is possessed of that catholicity 
 which is so sorely needed in religion. 
 
 There is no peace of soul for him whose religion 
 has not passed through the furnace of scientific criti- 
 cism, where it is cleansed of all the slag and dross of 
 paganism. If God ever spoke to man, science is the 
 
ROMANES'S THOUGHTS ON RELIGION 73 
 
 burning bush ; and if there is any light by which man 
 can hope to illumine his path so as to make firm steps, 
 it is the light of science. Let us, therefore, make re- 
 ligion scientific and science religious. Let us, on the 
 one hand, imbue religion with the spirit of science, 
 with its rigorous criticism, strict exactness, and stern 
 devotion to truth; and on the other hand, let us open 
 our eyes to the moral and religious importance of the 
 results of scientific inquiry. The ultimate aim of sci- 
 ence is to reveal to man the religion of truth. 
 
 Let the light of science illumine both our minds 
 and our sentiments ; for science is holy, and the light 
 of science is the dwelling-place of God. 
 
THE REVISION OF A CREED. 
 
 WE have at present the strange spectacle that in 
 one of our churches the proposition is discussed 
 to change some grave particulars of creed. The old 
 doctrines have become "unpreachable," as it is ex- 
 pressed, either because the ministers no longer be- 
 lieve them, or because people are loath to listen to 
 ideas which now appear as monstrosities and absurd- 
 ities. 
 
 We naturally hail the progress of a church and its 
 development into broader views of religious truth. 
 Yet at the same time we feel the littleness of the ad- 
 vance. What is the progress of a few steps, if a man 
 has to travel hundreds of miles! Moreover, what is 
 any progress, if it is done under the pressure of cir- 
 cumstances only and not from a desire to advance and 
 keep abreast with the true spirit of the times ! The 
 change of a creed should not be forced upon a church 
 from without by the progress of unchurched thinkers, 
 but it should result from the growth and expanse of 
 its own life. The church, as the moral instructor of 
 mankind, should not be dragged along behind the 
 triumphant march of humanity, but should deploy in 
 front with the vanguard of science! 
 
 The eternal damnation of noble-minded heathen 
 
THE REVISION OF A CREED 75 
 
 and of the tender-souled infants who happen to die 
 unbaptized, was sternly believed in by the ancestors 
 of our Presbyterian friends. They declared, without 
 giving any reasonable argument for their opinion, that 
 this is part of the divine order of things, and whoso- 
 ever does not believe it, will be damned for all eternity, 
 together with the wise Socrates and the virtuous Con- 
 fucius. 
 
 Who made Calvin the councilor of divine provi- 
 dence and who gave him the right of electing or re- 
 jecting the souls of men? On what ground could his 
 narrow view, excusable in his time, be incorporated 
 into the creed of a church? The argument on which 
 Calvin's view rests, was very weak, but the founders 
 of the Presbyterian Church being convinced of its 
 truth, thought to strengthen it by incorporating the 
 doctrine into their Confession. An idea, once sancti- 
 fied by tradition, has a tenacious life. Reverence for 
 the founders of a church will keep their errors sacred 
 and will not allow an impartial investigation of their 
 opinions. 
 
 Reverence is a good thing; but all reverence 
 toward men, be they ever so venerable, must be con- 
 trolled by the reverence for truth. And this is the 
 worst part of the change of the Confession. The 
 change, it appears, is not made because the objection- 
 able doctrines are recognized as errors; but simply 
 because they are at the present time too repulsive for 
 popular acceptance. 
 
 Why are the doctrines of eternal punishment not 
 openly and confessedly branded as errors? Why can 
 
76 THE REVISION OF A CREED 
 
 it not be acknowledged that tenets which our fathers 
 considered as truths of divine revelation, were after all 
 their personal and private opinions only? 
 
 We ask why, but receive no explanation. Yet 
 there is a reason that lurks behind, although it seems 
 as if the men who are most concerned were not con- 
 scious of it. If the error were acknowledged, a prin- 
 ciple would be pronounced which opens the door to a 
 greater and more comprehensive reform. And such 
 a reform is not wanted. The clergy seem to be 
 afraid of it. If the error is conceded, it means the 
 denial of the infallibility of the Confession. The dog- 
 mas of the church cease to be absolute verities; and 
 truth is recognized above the creed of the church, as 
 the highest court of appeal — truth, ascertainable by 
 philosophical enquiry and scientific research. 
 
 This would be equivalent to the abolition of all 
 dogmas and would mean the enthronement of a princi- 
 ple to fill their place. This principle, if we look at it 
 closely, is nothing new; it is an old acquaintance of 
 ours ; it is the same principle on which science stands. 
 And the recognition of this principle would be the 
 conciliation between science and religion once for all. 
 
 Brethren, do not shut your eyes in broad daylight, 
 but look freely about and follow the example of the 
 great founder of Christianity. Worship God not in 
 vain repetitions, not in pagan adoration, as if God were 
 a man like ourselves. Worship God in spirit and in 
 truth. Acknowledge the superiority of truth above 
 your creed, and be not ashamed of widening the pale 
 of your churches. 
 
THE REVISION OF A CREED 77 
 
 If you acknowledge the supremacy of truth and 
 make your changes in the Confession because truth 
 compels you to make them, your progress will be that 
 of a man who walketh upright and straight. But if 
 you do not acknowledge the superiority of truth above 
 your creed, if you identify truth with your creed, your 
 progress will be the advance of a soldier loitering in 
 the rear of his army, who is afraid of being left be- 
 hind. You will unwillingly have to yield to the neces- 
 sity of a change ; and you will have to do it again and 
 again, and always without dignity. 
 
 Is it dignified to alter a religious creed because it 
 appears as a relic of barbarism, because it has become 
 odious to the people, and because it no longer suits 
 their tastes? Your Confession should be allegiance 
 to truth. Will you degrade it to be the unstable ex- 
 pression of the average opinion of your members ? 
 
 There is but one way to free yourselves from all 
 these difficulties. Recognize no dogma as absolute 
 and reverence no confession as infallible ; but let truth, 
 ascertainable truth, be the supreme judge of all doc- 
 trines and of all traditions. 
 
 Your Bible, your hymn book, your catechism, the 
 history of your church, and the reminiscences of your 
 venerable leaders shall remain respected among your- 
 self and children, but let them not be overrated in 
 their authority. Truth reigns above them all, and the 
 holiness of truth is the foundation of all true religion. 
 
 When Luther stood before the emperor and the 
 representatives of church and state, he begged to be 
 refuted, and if he were refuted, he promised to keep 
 
78 THE REVISION OF A CREED 
 
 silence; but as he was not, he continued to preach 
 and he preached boldly in the name of truth as one 
 that had authority. Therefore let religious progress 
 be made as in the era of the Reformation, not in com- 
 plaisance to popular opinion, but squarely in the name 
 of truth. 
 
BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW. 
 
 THE REFORMATION OF CHRISTIANITY THROUGH THE 
 HIGHER CRITICISM AND A NEW ORTHODOXY. 
 
 THE old year is gone, the new year has come, and 
 we are again reminded of the truism that life is 
 both transient and immortal. The statement appears 
 contradictory, but the fact is undeniable. Nothing per- 
 sists and yet everything endures. The changes that 
 take place are transformations in which everything 
 continues to exercise an influence according to its 
 nature and importance. 
 
 Science has changed our life and is still chang- 
 ing it, raising our civilization to a higher plane, and 
 making us conscious of the great possibilities of in- 
 vention, which by far outstrip the boldest promises of 
 the illusions of magic. But science affects also our re- 
 ligion : the very foundations of morality and faith 
 seem to give way under our feet, and lamentations are 
 heard that, if the least iota in our beliefs be altered, 
 desolation will prevail and the light that so far has 
 illumined our path will be extinguished. Many earnest 
 believers are full of anxiety on account of the results 
 of the scientific Bible-research, commonly called the 
 Higher Criticism, which threatens to destroy Chris- 
 tianity and appears to leave nothing tangible to be- 
 
80 BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 
 
 lieve or hope for. The old orthodoxy is tottering in 
 all its positions, and nothing seems left which can be 
 relied upon. 
 
 O ye of little faith! It is the old dogmatism only 
 that falls to the ground, but not religion, and not even 
 orthodoxy. Many ideas that were dear to you have 
 become illusory; you did not understand their alle- 
 gorical nature, and now that they burst before your 
 eyes like soap-bubbles, you while gazing at them are 
 dismayed like children who will not be comforted. 
 
 Orthodoxy means "right doctrine" and it is but 
 natural to think that if our orthodoxy is hopelessly 
 lost, scepticism will prevail and we must be satisfied 
 with the conclusion that there is no stability in the 
 world and that nothing can be known for certain. But 
 because the old orthodoxy fails there is no reason to 
 say that orthodoxy itself in the original and proper 
 sense of the term is a vain hope. Bear in mind that 
 the nature of science is the endeavor to establish an 
 unquestionable orthodoxy on the solid foundation of 
 evidence and proof? 
 
 The very power that destroys the errors of the past 
 is born of the same spirit which gave life to the ages 
 gone by so long as they were the living present. The 
 authority of science is not a power of evil, but it is of 
 the same source as the noble aspirations for a higher 
 life which were revealed through the pens of prophets 
 and holy men who, yearning for truth and righteous- 
 ness, wrote the scriptures and called the church into 
 existence in the hope of building up a kingdom of 
 heaven on earth. The allegories in which the past 
 
BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 81 
 
 spoke have ceased to be true to us who want the truth, 
 according to the scientific spirit of the age, in unmis- 
 takable terms and exact formulas. But the aspiration 
 lives on, and a deeper scientific insight into our re- 
 ligious literature does not come to destroy religion; it 
 destroys its errors and thus purifies religion and opens 
 another epoch in the evolution of religious life. The 
 negation of the Biblical criticism is only a preliminary 
 work, which prepares the way for positive issues; 
 scepticism may be a phase through which we have to 
 pass, but the final result will be the recognition of 
 a new orthodoxy — the orthodoxy of scientific truth, 
 which discards the belief in the letter, but preserves 
 the spirit, and stands in every respect as high above 
 the old orthodoxy as astronomy ranges above astrol- 
 ogy- 
 
 The Bible, which is unqualifiedly that collection of 
 
 books in the literature of the world which has exer- 
 cised the most potent influence upon the civilization of 
 the world, is not wisely read, even in Evangelical 
 countries, and where it is read it is mostly misunder- 
 stood. The pious exalt it as the word of God, and 
 believe its contents as best they can, either literally or 
 the main spirit of its doctrines ; while the infidel points 
 out its incongruities and pillories its monstrosities. 
 Need we add that the mistaken pretensions of the 
 bigot justify the caustic sarcasm of the scoffer? But 
 there is another attitude which we can take towards 
 the Bible. It is that of a reader eager to learn and 
 impartial in investigation. To the person that studies 
 them in the same spirit that the historian studies Greek 
 
82 BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 
 
 and Roman literature, the Biblical books appear as 
 the documents of the religious evolution of mankind. 
 Such men as Goethe and Humboldt, who read the Bible 
 appreciatively but without piety, so called, had only 
 words of praise, and found in it an inexhaustible source 
 of wisdom and poetry. Piety, in the right sense and 
 in the right place, is a good thing, but if we read docu- 
 ments, such as the Bible contains, not with an open 
 mind, but with a complete submission of judgment, 
 and prayingly, one eye on the Scriptures, the other 
 turned up to heaven, we are as apt to distort their 
 meaning, and render ourselves unfit to comprehend 
 their purport as is the iconoclast, who goes over its 
 pages with no other intention than in quest of absurd- 
 ities. 
 
 The people of Israel were not, at the beginning 
 of their history, in possession of a pure religion. 
 Their world-conception was apparently not much dif- 
 ferent from that of their neighbors. Their God was a 
 tribal Deity, and their religion was henotheism, not 
 monotheism. It was mainly racial tenacity which 
 prompted them to serve him alone. The national 
 party clung to their God with an invincible faith which 
 was more patriotic than religious. Yet this fidelity to 
 the national God was, at bottom, a profoundly moral 
 instinct ; it was not mere superstition but contained the 
 germ of a genuine faith, which was never annihilated 
 by misfortunes, but only modified and freed from its 
 crude misconceptions. The grander conception of 
 monotheism developed slowly through a long series of 
 sad experiences, of disappointments, and tribulations, 
 
BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 83 
 
 from henotheism, until it became entheism in Christ, 
 who said God is spirit, God is love, and when he was 
 asked where his father was, replied: The father is 
 here in our hearts ; and I and the father are one. 
 
 When reading the Bible, we must bear in mind 
 that the God-idea of the Israelites was not free from 
 superstition, and we shall the better understand the 
 moral element which was present in it from the begin- 
 ning. The prophets and priests of old were groping 
 after a better and better understanding of God, and 
 they were by no means agreed upon his nature or 
 name. There were parties among the prophets as 
 there are parties now in our churches, and one theory 
 attempted to overthrow other theories. There was the 
 national party, as narrow as are all national parties, 
 and its representatives regarded everything foreign as 
 defilement. It was more influential than any other 
 party, and Israel has been punished severely for its 
 mistakes. But every chastisement served only to 
 strengthen their conviction in the justice of their God, 
 and we can observe how, through their blunders and 
 errors, the people of Israel began to learn that their 
 God was not the tribal deity, but, if he was God at 
 all, the omnipotent ruler of the world and the ulti- 
 mate authority of moral conduct, whose moral com- 
 mands must be obeyed everywhere, and who reveals 
 himself in both the curse of sin and the bliss of right- 
 eousness. He who understands the laws of spiritual 
 growth can appreciate the nobility, the genius, the 
 earnestness, and moral greatness of the authors of the 
 
84 BEHOLD ! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 
 
 Biblical books, without being blind to their shortcom- 
 ings and faults. 
 
 The Bible is as much a revelation as is the evolution 
 of the human race. The Biblical books are the docu- 
 ments of the revelation of religion, and must, in order 
 to be true, contain not only the results thus far at- 
 tained, but also the main errors through which the 
 results have been reached, and we must know that the 
 world has not as yet come to a standstill. The Ref- 
 ormation has ushered in a new epoch of religious 
 thought, and we are now again on the eve of a new 
 dispensation. 
 
 One of the errors of the authors of the Bible, — and 
 he who understands the law of evolution knows that 
 it is an inevitable error, — is the belief in miracles, 
 which is prevalent among the authors of the writings 
 of the Old and the New Testament. The sanctity of 
 the Scriptures has caused faithful Christians, who 
 would otherwise not be guilty of credulity, to accept 
 without hesitation the report of the miracles of the 
 Bible. The belief in miracles alone proves that the 
 Biblical books must be regarded as the documents of 
 the religious evolution of the people of Israel, and 
 not as the literally inspired word of God ; but there is 
 another and a stronger evidence which is the lack of 
 genuine divinity and even of moral character which is 
 frequently attributed to God by the prophets them- 
 selves. 
 
 When the people of Israel were about to leave 
 Egypt, "they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of 
 
BEHOLD ! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 85 
 
 silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment," with the pur- 
 pose of never returning them, and the Bible adds : 
 
 "And the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the 
 Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they 
 required. And they spoiled the Egyptians." 
 
 All the old-fashioned explanations of this passage, 
 that the Israelites had served the Egyptians as slaves 
 without return, and they were entitled to take cun- 
 ningly what they could not get openly, are crooked 
 and unworthy ; for God, if he be truly God, cannot be 
 a patron of sneak-thieves. If God undertakes to 
 straighten out the injustice of the Egyptians, he can- 
 not do it by sanctioning robbery and fraud. There is 
 but one explanation of this passage, that the author 
 had no better idea of God than a former slave could 
 attain in his degradation and in the wretched sur- 
 roundings of oppression and poverty. Knavery, the 
 sole means of self-defense to a slave, was so ingrained 
 in his character, that his God-conception was affected 
 by it. The God-idea of the book of Exodus has been 
 purified since those days, but the man who wrote that 
 passage was as honestly mistaken about it as is many 
 a clergyman of to-day, who denounces investigation 
 as ungodly and finds no salvation, except in the sur- 
 render of reason and science. 
 
 There are several competitive trials in miracle- 
 working between the priests of other gods and the 
 prophets of the Lord of Israel mentioned in the Bible, 
 in which the former are always defeated and the latter 
 are vindicated. The question is, Can a Christian re- 
 gard these stories as legends which characterize the 
 
86 BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 
 
 opinions held in those distant ages, or must he main- 
 tain that they are historically reliable reports, and as 
 the word of God even truer than history, if that could 
 be? 
 
 Let us consider one of them, related in the first 
 book of Kings, chapter 18, where we are told that at 
 the time of a severe drought Elijah had the children 
 of Israel and four hundred prophets of Baal gathered 
 around him on Mount Carmel, and he said to the 
 people : 
 
 "How long halt ye between two opinons? if the Lord be 
 God, follow him : but if Baal, then follow him." 
 
 Elijah then takes two bullocks, one for himself, the 
 other one for the prophets of Baal ; both are killed 
 for sacrifice and laid upon wood, without putting fire 
 under the wood. The prophets of Baal invoked their 
 God in vain, although they cried aloud, and had to bear 
 the ridicule of Elijah; but when Elijah prayed to God, 
 "the fire of the Lord fell and consumed not only the 
 burnt sacrifice and the wood," after it had been sur- 
 rounded by a trench and soaked three times with 
 water, but also "the stones and the dust, and licked 
 up the water that was in the trench." 
 
 Now, I make bold to say in the name of all that is 
 holy and in the name of truth, that no educated Chris- 
 tian of to-day would propose to repeat Elijah's experi- 
 ment. God would not perform such a miracle to-day 
 as he is reported to have done in Elijah's time, and 
 our most orthodox, or rather so-called orthodox, theo- 
 logians would no longer dare to stake the reputation of 
 their religion on trials like that, for they would mis- 
 
BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 87 
 
 erably fail. And even if they succeeded by hook or by 
 crook, which is not impossible since we must grant 
 that some spiritualistic mediums are, indeed, marvel- 
 ously successful in their art, would we, for that reason, 
 be converted to their God-conception? Not at all. 
 God, if he be God at all, cannot be a trickster or a 
 protector of sleight-of-hand. 
 
 It is undeniable that our conception of God has 
 changed, and even the so-called old orthodox people 
 are affected by the change, although they are to a 
 great extent unconscious of the fact. The best argu- 
 ment, however, that the present God-conception of 
 Christianity is different from what it was of yore lies 
 not in a changed conception of miracles (for there are 
 many Christians who still imagine they believe in 
 miracles in the same way as did the prophet Elijah) ; 
 the best argument lies on moral grounds. We read in 
 the same chapter, verse 40 : 
 
 "And Elijah said unto them [the people], Take the prophets 
 of Baal ; let not one of them escape. And they took them : 
 and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and slew 
 them there." 
 
 After the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal 
 had been slain, the sky became black with clouds, and 
 king Ahab who had been a witness to these events had 
 to hurry home so as not to be stopped by the rain. 
 
 The prophets of Baal were slaughtered not be- 
 cause they had committed crimes, but because they 
 had set their trust in Baal and not in Yahveh. It is 
 true that Baal-worship was very superstitious, but 
 would it not have been better to educate the erring 
 
88 BEHOLD ! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 
 
 than to kill them? The truth is that Elijah, although 
 standing on a higher ground than the prophets of Baal, 
 was not yet free from superstition himself. 
 
 Should any pious Christian be still narrow enough 
 in his intellectual comprehension to believe in a god 
 of rain-makers, he will most assuredly not believe in 
 the god of assassins, whose command is: slay every- 
 one with the sword who preaches another god. 
 
 The God of the new orthodoxy is no longer the 
 totem of the medicine-man or the rain-maker ; he is no 
 longer the idolized personification of either the cunning 
 of the slave or the brutality of the oppressor. He is 
 the superpersonal omnipotence of existence, the irref- 
 ragable order of cosmic law, and the still dispensa- 
 tion of justice which slowly but surely, without any 
 exception, always and under all conditions, makes for 
 righteousness. 
 
 We discard the errors of the religion of the medi- 
 cine-man, but we must not forget to give him credit 
 for both his faith and honest endeavors. We stand 
 upon his shoulders ; his work and experience continues 
 to live in us. He changed into a physician, a priest, 
 a scientist, a philosopher, according to the same law 
 of evolution which transforms a seed into a tree and a 
 caterpillar into a butterfly. 
 
 Nothing is annihilated, nothing is lost, or wiped out 
 of existence, making it as if it had never been, but 
 everything is preserved in this wonderful and labyrin- 
 thian system of transformations. Everything that ex- 
 ists now and everything that ever has existed remains 
 a factor in the procreation of the future. The future is 
 
BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 89 
 
 not radically new, it is the old transformed; it is the 
 past as the present has shaped it; and if the present 
 is a living power with spiritual foresight and ideals, if 
 it is the mind of aspiring man, the future will be better, 
 nobler, grander. There is no reason for complaining 
 over the collapse of the old orthodoxy, for that which 
 is good in it will be preserved in the new orthodoxy. 
 
 We read in the Revelation of St. John (xxi, 5) : 
 "He that sat upon the throne said, Behold ! I make all things 
 new. And he said unto me, Write : for these words are true 
 and faithful." 
 
 What shall be the attitude of religious people of 
 to-day in the face of such passages in their holy Scrip- 
 tures? Is there any Christian to-day who would dare 
 to justify Elijah? There are a few ill-advised people 
 left who would try to defend his intolerance and who 
 still cling to the errors of their traditional belief. Their 
 God-conception belittles God, and lowers the moral 
 standard of their faith. 
 
 To escape the moral degradation of religion, we 
 can no longer shut out the light of science, we must 
 learn to understand that God is a God of evolution, 
 and that evolution means progress, and progress is the 
 essence of life. 
 
 The development of the world is God's revelation, 
 and the Bible is only one part of it. God is greater 
 than the Bible, he reveals himself also in Shakespeare 
 and in Goethe, in Lamarck and Darwin, in Guten- 
 berg, James Watts, and Edison. The Bible is a grand 
 book, it is a collection of the most important and indis- 
 pensable documents of the religious development of 
 
90 BEHOLD! I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW 
 
 mankind, but it is after all only a paltry piece of God's 
 revelation which has to be deciphered with as much 
 trouble and painstaking as the facts of natural history 
 that confront us. And the development of religion is 
 by no means at an end. We are still very far from 
 having worked out our salvation and in many of the 
 walks of life we are only groping for the right path. 
 Every truth found by science, every invention 
 achieved by inventors, every social improvement made 
 in mutual justice and good-will, every progress of any 
 kind is a contribution toward maturing the one re- 
 ligion of mankind which is destined to be the cosmic 
 faith of the world, which will be truly orthodox, be- 
 cause scientifically true, truly catholic, because uni- 
 versal, truly authoritative and holy, because enjoining 
 conformity to that cosmic revelation of life in which we 
 live and move and have our being. 
 
DEFINITION OF RELIGION. 
 
 IT is an old experience that emotional people fre- 
 quently show a contempt for the labors of the intel- 
 lect. The heart ever and anon rebels against the head, 
 and feelings defy definitions. No wonder that religion 
 and religious devotees casually exhibit a dislike for sci- 
 ence, and mankind is only now finding out that this op- 
 position that obtains between the two most salient fea- 
 tures of our spiritual life is not an irreconcilable contra- 
 diction but a mere contrast. 
 
 It is for these reasons that some of the simplest 
 notions have been declared to be undefinable and inex- 
 plicable. Human sentiment revolts against the idea 
 that a cold and clear formula should cover all that is 
 stirring in our inmost soul, and so it appears more 
 satisfactory to the average sentimentalist to rest satis- 
 fied with the verdict that certain things are undefinable. 
 Among them are mainly the words, "God," "soul," 
 and "religion." But we ought to remember that a 
 definition is a description of the salient features of a 
 thing and not the thing itself. A definition helps us 
 to understand the nature of a thing, and a definition 
 does not contain anything that would describe its rela- 
 tion to our own self or its paramount importance for 
 our life. Thus it happens that the so-called undefinable 
 
92 DEFINITION OF RELIGION 
 
 ideas are some of the simplest concepts, and their 
 very simplicity is objectionable to one who does not 
 understand the nature of scientific precision, and this is 
 now and then true even of such a man as Emerson 
 whose words Professor Ralph Barton Perry quotes: 
 "If I speak, I define and confine, and am less." 
 
 Professor Perry himself opens his article on "Re- 
 ligious Experience" with the words: "The least re- 
 ligious experience is so mysterious and so complex, that 
 a moderate degree of reflection upon it tends to a sense 
 of intellectual impotence." We might say the same 
 of any event that takes place in this world, the simplest 
 of all being the fall of a stone which takes place ac- 
 cording to the well known Newtonian formulas of 
 gravitation. Though our definition of the fall of the 
 stone is perfect, the act itself is so complex that a real 
 comprehension of all the details of a single instance 
 would only go to reveal our intellectual impotence. We 
 are capable of generalization, i. e., to mark and describe 
 those features which a set of events has in common, 
 and our generalizations, because they point out the 
 salient features, enable us to comprehend the world, 
 but while generalizations are mere words, the real 
 events are aglow with action. The cold formulas of 
 science lack the life of reality, and if the falling stone 
 could think and speak it would feel that its own case 
 of rushing toward the ground on account of the attrac- 
 tion with which its mass is animated under the partic- 
 ular circumstances of the special event is so mysterious, 
 so complex, so absolutely beyond any description in a 
 scientific formula that it would scorn the idea of being 
 
DEFINITION OF RELIGION 93 
 
 subsumed with all other analogous cases under one 
 general law. 
 
 In defining events we must not be too over-anxious 
 to satisfy the demands of emotion. Definitions de- 
 scribe the salient feature of a number of events and 
 there is no set of facts which cannot be classified, 
 named and described. 
 
 Religion is an ideal and its emotional character is 
 its most characteristic element. Accordingly we need 
 not be astonished that religious minds scorn any scien- 
 tific definition of religion. Nevertheless religion is as 
 much definable as any other affair or event. 
 
 The old traditional definition of religion has been 
 "man's union with, or relation to God." Those who 
 would try to make a concession to polytheism, add the 
 words "or to gods," that is to say, in general to super- 
 natural beings who answer prayers and exercise an in- 
 fluence upon the world. Since we have become ac- 
 quainted with atheistic religions (such as is Buddhism) 
 or purely ethical systems (such as is Confucianism), 
 our religious philosophers have become puzzled and 
 have not as yet found a definition which would be broad 
 enough to comprehend also such views as must appear 
 irreligious to our traditional dogmatism. They have 
 resorted either to the theory that religions which 
 ignore, or do not recognize, the existence of God, or 
 gods, or a supernatural world, cannot be regarded as re- 
 ligious in the proper sense of the term, but they recog- 
 nize philosophical interpretations of God, and so they 
 replace the definition of religion as our "union with 
 God" by a broader term such as belief in a super- 
 
94 DEFINITION OF RELIGION 
 
 natural world order, or they define religion (with 
 Schleiermacher) in purely subjective terms as "the 
 feeling of absolute dependence." 
 
 The definition of religion as our union with God 
 has proved satisfactory to religious minds only on ac- 
 count of the other emotional term, "God." The word 
 "God" too has been proclaimed as undefinable for the 
 very same reasons as the term "religion." Our notion 
 of God is so replete with sentiment and fills us with so 
 much awe that we hesitate to believe it could be de- 
 scribed in a simple formula, and when thinkers began 
 to reject the traditional conception of God as an indi- 
 vidual being while at the same time attempting to re- 
 tain the substance of their emotional reverence for 
 the word, they replaced it by such words as "the In- 
 finite," "the First Cause," "the Eternal," "the Highest 
 Being," etc., but for all that the words God and Re- 
 ligion, whatever their import for our feelings may be, 
 are and will remain very simple ideas. 
 
 God, whatever notion of divinity man may have 
 had, has been from the beginning and is still an idea 
 of moral significance to everyone who uses the word 
 and believes in the existence of a God. God to the 
 savage as well as to the Christian apologetic of the 
 twentieth century is that power which forces upon 
 man a definite line of conduct and every believer in 
 God considers that to be the duty of his life which in 
 his opinion he trusts is the will of his God. 
 
 When Jephtha, the judge of Israel, thought that 
 Yahveh demanded of him the sacrifice of his daughter 
 as a burnt offering, he obeyed with a bleeding heart. 
 
DEFINITION OF RELIGION 95 
 
 From the standpoint of his belief, his act was moral 
 for it was according to his religion and his conception 
 of God. 
 
 Ximenes, one of the most uncompromising inquis- 
 itors of Spain, had thousands of victims burned at the 
 stake, and yet, it is said, that he was so tender hearted 
 that he could not bear the groans and cries of the sus- 
 pected heretics whom he ordered to be tortured on the 
 rack. He appears to us as a villain and a hard-hearted 
 scoundrel, but the truth is that, from the standpoint of 
 his conscience, his infamous autos da fe were truly 
 moral acts which with logical necessity were derived 
 from his conception of God. As was his religion so 
 was his morality. We can not blame him, we must 
 blame his religion. From the higher standpoint of a 
 modern God-conception his acts were immoral, if 
 judged by present standards, and their badness only 
 proves how important it is for us to have the right 
 kind of religion. 
 
 Judging from all instances of the different deities 
 that exercise their influence upon human hearts I have 
 come to the conclusion that the best definition of God 
 in a religious sense would be to say that God is that 
 something in a power beyond our control which deter- 
 mines our actions, or in other words, "God is the 
 highest authority for moral conduct." Whether or not 
 this authority for moral conduct be conceived as an 
 individual being, natural or supernatural, as a general 
 idea, or as a law of nature, or as a mysterious power, 
 is another question which will prove of importance 
 whenever we investigate the God-conceptions of the 
 
96 DEFINITION OF RELIGION 
 
 several religions or of different philosophers. The 
 truth remains that the common feature of all God-con- 
 ceptions is that God represents the ultimate authority 
 for our actions. 
 
 Religion refers to the entire man; it covers his 
 whole life, intellectual, emotional and practical. The 
 roots of our religion lie deeply buried in our world- 
 conception and therewith religion permeates our intel- 
 lect, our sentiments and our will. It resides in the 
 head, it pulsates in the heart, it guides the hand. It 
 appears as dogma, as the tenor that gives a definite 
 character to our aspirations; as worship, ritual and 
 prayer ; as sacrifice, devotion and rule of conduct. Fur- 
 ther, it is the quintessence of our hopes and our dreams 
 and the guiding star and mariner's compass on our 
 voyage through life. 
 
 The triple nature of religion as being at once the 
 dominant of the intellect, of the emotions and of the 
 will, is best expressed in the word "conviction," for by 
 "conviction" we understand an idea that is backed by 
 sentiment and serves as a regulator of conduct. Ac- 
 cordingly, religion is a world-conception that has be- 
 come our conviction. 
 
 Religion is different in different ages, under differ- 
 ent conditions, in different temperaments, and in people 
 of different characters. Although it always affects the 
 whole man, it is to the intellectualist mainly a doctrine ; 
 to the sentimentalist, mainly a feeling ("Gefuhl ist 
 alles" says Faust) ; to the moralist, mainly a rule of 
 action ; to the man of practical life, mainly endeavor ; 
 to the traditionalist, mainly a matter of observances; 
 
DEFINITION OF RELIGION 97 
 
 to the pietist, mainly devotion, etc. All these phenom- 
 ena are characteristic of religion, but none of them 
 exhausts its nature completely. 
 
 It becomes obvious that religion is the natural prod- 
 uct of human nature. Wherever there are rational be- 
 ings who can form a systematic view of the world, re- 
 ligion will inevitably develop, and religion will be of the 
 most varied character, savage or civilized, vulgar or 
 noble, superstitious or lofty and pure, according to 
 circumstances and the nature of the people. 
 
 Purely intellectual ideas are scientific ; they may be 
 true or, if not exactly true, we may be convinced of 
 their truth. They are not religious, but they may be- 
 come religious. An idea becomes religious as soon as 
 it becomes an authoritative truth, a truth to mind which 
 we deem to be a duty. Thus the doctrine of evolution 
 has become a religious tenet to many by implying the 
 duty of being progressive and working for the advance 
 of the human race. 
 
 In brief, religion covers man's relation to the en- 
 tirety of existence. The characteristic feature of re- 
 ligion is conviction, and its contents a world-conception 
 which serves for the regulation of conduct. 
 
 This definition of religion is as broad as it is sweep- 
 ing; it covers not only the theistic faith, but also the 
 atheistic religions, such as Buddhism and Confucian- 
 ism, and also all philosophies, for religion is the philos- 
 ophy of historical movements, while a philosophy is 
 the religion of an individual thinker. Our definition 
 includes all serious convictions, even those which pride 
 themselves on being irreligious. Irreligion, according 
 
98 DEFINITION OF RELIGION 
 
 to our definition, would be that world-conception that 
 had no rule of conduct, no maxim according to which 
 man could regulate his life, and thus the irreligious 
 man would practically be identical with the thoughtless 
 man, the man without convictions, without principles, 
 who lives only for the present moment, who never 
 thinks of the future or the past and who, animal-like, 
 only satisfies the immediate impulses of his instincts. 
 
 By offering this comparatively simple definition of 
 religion we do not mean to describe all the awe and 
 reverence which the religious man cherishes for his 
 God, for the authority of his conduct, for his ideals. 
 That is indescribable, as much so as any reality in its 
 peculiar idiosyncracy defies definition, but our defini- 
 tion, it is to be hoped, will prove sufficient for scientific 
 purposes, as a satisfactory generalization of all re- 
 ligious phenomena. 
 
THE CLERGY'S DUTY OF ALLEGIANCE TO 
 DOGMA AND THE STRUGGLE BE- 
 TWEEN WORLD-CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 A LATE number of the Gegenwart of Berlin (Vol. 
 XL, No. 30) contained an article by Mr. Eugene 
 Schiffer, a German justice, on the subject, ''World- 
 Conception and the Office of Judge," in which atten- 
 tion was called to the fact that the performance of 
 duties, not only in the pulpit but in all the professions, 
 and preeminently in the dispensation of justice through 
 the courts, depends upon and stands in a more or less 
 close connection with some definite world-conception; 
 thus showing that religion of some kind forms and 
 must form the background of the practical life of so- 
 ciety. He says : 
 
 "The church demands of its disciples as an indispensable 
 condition of serving her the confession of a certain world-con- 
 ception; she requires that every one who intends to take upon 
 himself her rights and duties, should in his inmost heart agree 
 with her concerning the contents of her faith, especially con- 
 cerning the dogmas on eschatology, on God and world, body 
 and soul, the origin and end of things; and this is but a mat- 
 ter of course, for the essential part and also the foundation of 
 her activity lie in these very doctrines and in their propaga- 
 tion. It is a hard and a severe demand. Although on the 
 one hand the morally free fulfilment of her requests contains 
 the germ of an harmonious development of life and promises 
 
100 ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 
 
 an extraordinary concentration and elevation of all faculties, 
 it leads on the other hand to serious conflicts, of which the 
 pages of history not less than the experiences of our daily life 
 exhibit innumerable and sad instances. We recollect the ter- 
 rible spiritual struggles in the souls of those who commenced 
 to doubt, and the outcome is generally a pitiful catastrophe, 
 either submission and hypocrisy with the weak, or tribulation, 
 renunciation, and ruin with those who thought higher of 
 truth than of their worldly emoluments. 
 
 "Most of the other professions and trades know nothing 
 of the indispensability of a certain world-conception. The 
 merchant, the mechanic, the lawyer, the soldier, the teacher, 
 the laborer, can upon the whole think concerning these highest 
 problems of life as they please. An inner and ideal conflict 
 between their views and their calling seems definitely ex- 
 cluded. Outer and practical conditions — such as administra- 
 tive injunctions of a certain kind, the aspiration of progress, 
 the ambition to be better off, etc. — may sometimes produce 
 conflicts. 
 
 "Yet this character of indifference concerning a general 
 world-conception which is found in the secular professions 
 and trades does not bear the stamp of permanence. For ulti- 
 mately the entire doing and achieving of every thinking man, 
 so far as it rises above the mere vegetative functions, is inti- 
 mately connected with that common world-conception which 
 everywhere influences and guides him. This is unnoticeable so 
 long as the harmony of the connection remains undisturbed, 
 but it manifests itself in consciousness as soon as its harmony 
 is threatened through some important change of any of its 
 parts. Even to-day a deep-going change is preparing itself ; 
 even now the struggle about the world-conception is fought 
 more severely and more bitterly than ever and a new doctrine 
 goes far enough to uncover the ultimate roots of our civiliza- 
 tion, of our position in life, of our calling; it attacks and 
 shakes the present world-conception. 
 
 "This implies the possibility of a conflict between the old 
 
ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 101 
 
 and the new faith even outside the pale of the church, and 
 this conflict may influence the choice of a calling. This pos- 
 sibility has become an imminent probability concerning the 
 office of judge, especially the judge of a criminal court. 
 
 "The dispensation of justice rests to a great extent upon 
 the presupposition of guilt and the criminal law of to-day is 
 almost throughout built upon this idea of guilt. It is true 
 that this view has not always been taken. The Greek law 
 and the old Germanic law interfered even in the gravest cases 
 exclusively on account of the objective state of things without 
 taking into consideration the criminal intent of the defendant. 
 But this view was superseded in the former case by the Roman, 
 in the latter by the canonical law, both requiring the concep- 
 tion of a moral and a subjective guilt, and at present the 
 criminal law of every civilized nation (with the sole exception 
 of the Chinese who threaten with capital punishment the one 
 who kills accidentally no less than the intentional murderer) 
 rests upon the foundation of a belief in guilt. 
 
 "But there is no room for guilt in the materialistic world- 
 conception. Everything that happens, the activity of the 
 human soul included, is to be explained according to mechan- 
 ical principles, and thus the view that man's will is not free 
 is proposed as one of its fundamental doctrines. While in 
 this way there is no possibility left that a man might have 
 acted differently than he actually did, this view takes away 
 his responsibility. And this movement which either cancels 
 or weakens the momentum of guilt, has taken hold of the 
 minds of men far beyond the circle of decided materialists. 
 
 "The foundation of our criminal law stands or falls with 
 the idea of guilt. With it stands and falls also the office of 
 the judge, whose duty is the dispensation and utilization of 
 justice. He who does not believe in the possibility of guilt 
 cannot without inconsistency pronounce any one guilty. He 
 who as a matter of principle or at least within certain not 
 well defined limits denies the freedom of the human will can 
 no longer serve as a judge, certainly not as a criminal judge." 
 
102 ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 
 
 Justice Eugene Schiffer is a conservative man. He 
 demands that for the protection of the old world-con- 
 ception the office of judge should be carefully guarded 
 against such intruders as are not in sympathy with the 
 present world-conception. He says : 
 
 "Exactly as the church, in order to preserve herself and 
 to guard against her theology being diluted into a watery 
 philosophy of religion, is bound not to separate the conditions 
 of her life from a definite world-conception, so also justice, 
 in order to deserve its name, should oblige its servants to take 
 a definite position toward the ultimate world-problems. . . . 
 He who does not accept in his conviction the moral founda- 
 tions of a certain calling, must not choose it, or if he has 
 chosen it he must renounce it— or he must in his profession 
 act against his conviction — unless he risks being discharged 
 from his office on account of a neglect of duties." 
 
 We agree with Justice Schiffer in one most impor- 
 tant point, viz., the intimate connection of religion with 
 practical life and of our world-conception with all our 
 doing and achieving. But we differ from him in an- 
 other no less important point, viz., in the proposition 
 to prevent the present world-conception from under- 
 going a further growth and higher evolution. His 
 proposition is nothing less than to make humanity and 
 all its institutions stationary. 
 
 Everything that exists has a natural right to defend 
 its existence, and so has the present world-conception. 
 But that which grows and develops out of the condi- 
 tions of the present existence has also a natural right 
 to attain existence. The ideal world of the "is to be" 
 is not a non-existence, as it might appear to the un- 
 knowing, but a germ existence, and if there is no room 
 
ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 103 
 
 for both the actual existence of the present state and 
 the germ existence of a new state, a struggle will 
 ensue. There are at present and always have been 
 many spurious world-conceptions which if they over- 
 came the present world-conception would lead hu- 
 manity backward to the beginning of civilization. In- 
 deed most propositions of reform are reversals which 
 would undo the results of evolution and reduce man- 
 kind to primitive conditions. The fermenting minds 
 of those who still hope to cure all the ills and woes of 
 society by one stroke, have not yet outgrown the idea 
 of the perfection, nobility, and happiness of the so- 
 called original state of nature. 
 
 "When wild in woods the noble savage ran." 
 Yet among all the plans of reform there is one 
 which is correct, answering the wants of the time ; and 
 among all the world-conceptions which struggle to 
 exist there is also one which is the legitimate outcome 
 of the present world-conception. It is the present 
 world-conception enlarged through additional experi- 
 ence and purified of certain errors. And it is an often 
 repeated occurrence in history that the old and the new, 
 father and son, have to fight with each other. The 
 heir apparent either does not know that he is the child 
 of his antagonist, or the latter the defendant of the 
 present state does not know that he fights with his own 
 son. This often repeated fact has found a mytholog- 
 ical expression in the old Teutonic song of Hilde- 
 brand meeting in combat his son Hadubrand, a legend 
 which in similar versions appears again in other Aryan 
 
104 ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 
 
 sagas, the best known of which is the tale of Rustem's 
 struggle with Sohrab in Firdusi's great Iranian epic. 
 
 Can the struggle between the old and the new 
 world-conception be avoided? No, it cannot and 
 should not, for the new has to prove its legitimacy by 
 showing its intrinsic strength; it must show that it 
 has the power to exist. The struggle cannot be 
 avoided, but the bitterness, the severity, the barbarity 
 of the struggle can be avoided. Let Hildebrand and 
 Hadubrand measure swords in a spiritual encounter, 
 let the vanquished ideas yield to the stronger ideas, and 
 they will prepare the gradual change of an evolution 
 instead of the sudden rupture of a revolution. 
 
 Freedom of thought is always the best soil for a 
 peaceful evolution but any system that binds the con- 
 sciences of men and ties their ideas down to the aver- 
 age level of a certain age will be as dangerous as a 
 boiler without a valve. There are periods of instability 
 in history when the strengthening of the conservative 
 spirit by imposing fetters upon the consciences of men 
 appears useful and almost a condition for the develop- 
 ment of some kind of a civilization. This found ex- 
 pression in the historic legends of Lycurgus and Solon, 
 binding their countrymen by oath not to alter the laws 
 of the state. But these periods are after all ephemeral, 
 and we ought to know by this time that we cannot bid 
 the sun stand still or check the spirit of progress and 
 the growth of mankind. There are nations which de- 
 velop slowly because they rush into innovations, but 
 there are other nations which have gone to the wall 
 because of over-conservatism through which they were 
 
ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 105 
 
 induced to suppress the freedom of thought and to 
 deny the right of doubting the absolute validity of the 
 prevailing world-conception. 
 
 The proposition of Justice Schiffer to bind the con- 
 science of the judge by an oath of allegiance to that 
 world-conception which is at present recognized as 
 orthodox, is actually a law in the constitution of the 
 church, and conflicts in the consciences of clergymen 
 are of a common occurrence. The opinion that a cler- 
 gyman who has ceased to believe in certain dogmas of 
 his church has to resign his position is very common 
 among freethinkers as well as orthodox believers. At 
 first sight this seems to be the only choice left to a 
 man of honesty and a lover of truth. I held this opin- 
 ion myself for a long time. There is nevertheless 
 another view of the subject which caused me to change 
 my opinion entirely, and I am glad to perceive that 
 such a man as Mr. Moncure D. Conway, who him- 
 self held a position in the church and having grown 
 more and more liberal, retired from active service, 
 declares most emphatically that a clergyman who has 
 grown liberal should not resign but stay in the church 
 and wait till the church forces him to leave his posi- 
 tion. This is an honest course, a clergyman has a 
 right to pursue it and he will thereby open the eyes 
 of his f ellowmen ; he will further the interests of man- 
 kind, and people will thus be enabled to judge better 
 whether or not it is just to impose these burdens upon 
 the pastors of the church. 
 
 Let us consider the case more closely. First, the 
 oath which a young clergyman gives at his ordination 
 
1C6 ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 
 
 is a promissory oath, and like all promissory oaths it 
 holds good on the supposition that all the main condi- 
 tions remain the same. If a man promises and binds 
 himself by an oath to start tomorrow morning on a 
 journey he does so on the supposition that it will be 
 possible. So far as he can foresee it is possible, but 
 incidents may happen which will make it impossible 
 tomorrow. A promissory oath will be a weight on the 
 conscience if it has to be broken, but it has no legal 
 force. Thus soldiers swear an oath of allegiance to 
 their king, and under ordinary circumstances there will 
 be no cause for doubt as to the propriety of remaining 
 faithful to the oath. But many cases of great perplex- 
 ity will appear when a civil war splits a nation in twain 
 so that brother stands against brother and faithfulness 
 to the king may be the most degrading felony toward 
 one's highest and holiest ideals, perhaps also toward 
 one's bodily parents and nearest kin. Who does not 
 recollect the sad end of Ludwig II, king of Bavaria? 
 When the mind of the unfortunate monarch was too 
 much deranged to leave him in possession of his royal 
 power, a commission of several authorized men went 
 to the castle where he resided to place him under the 
 care of a physician. The king refused to receive the 
 commission and ordered his faithful guards, by whom 
 he was surrounded, to seize the commission, gouge out 
 their eyes and treat them otherwise in the most out- 
 rageous way. The commission, not being protected, 
 were for a moment in great danger, but happily the 
 guards perceiving the seriousness of the situation did 
 
ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 107 
 
 not execute the king's orders and, we might say, broke 
 their oath. 
 
 Did they really break their oath ? No, they did not, 
 for when they were sworn to obey their sovereign 
 master and lord, it was supposed that the king was 
 and would remain in his right mind. He became in- 
 sane and this changed the situation entirely. 
 
 The oath of allegiance which the ministers of a 
 church swear at their ordination is made in the bona 
 fide conviction on both sides, — the church on the one 
 side and the man that takes orders on the other side, — 
 that the dogmas to which he pledges his troth are the 
 truth. The oath holds good so long as a minister be- 
 lieves that the dogmas of the church are the truth ; it 
 still holds good so long as he considers it possible 
 that they may be true. But the oath to believe them 
 ceases to bind in the sense in which it was demanded 
 as soon as a minister sees clearly that they are not true 
 and that their truth is an actual impossibility. It ranks 
 in the same category as the oath of allegiance to a sov- 
 ereign who has become insane. 
 
 But the case is more complex still. If promissory 
 oaths have no legal force because in certain cases a 
 man would have to act against the letter of the oath, 
 have these oaths no binding power whatever, as soon as 
 a minister recognizes the incongruity of the church 
 belief with truth? I should say that they have a bind- 
 ing power, yet this binding power must be sought not in 
 the letter but in the spirit of the oath. 
 
 One of the most prominent of judicial authorities, 
 Prof. Rudolf von Jhering, has written a book entitled 
 
108 ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 
 
 Der Zweck im Recht. He finds that all laws, all 
 wills, all decrees have a purpose, and this purpose is 
 their spirit. There are laws worded so badly that 
 obedience to the letter of the law would under certain 
 and unforeseen circumstances enforce exactly the con- 
 trary of that which the lav/ was made for. Instances 
 of this kind are of not uncommon occurrence, espe- 
 cially with regard to wills, testators and their legal 
 advisors being often unable to formulate their inten- 
 tions in a logical shape. Jhering maintains that a judge 
 in construing a will, a decree, or a law, has to find 
 out the intention and purpose of the testator, the mag- 
 istrate that gave the decree, or the legislator, and it is 
 this intention or purpose with which his decisions have 
 to agree. Supposing, however, that this purpose of a 
 will or a law is wrong in itself or nonsensical, a judge 
 has to construe it so that it will have sense. If the 
 purpose is criminal the whole transaction is illegal, if 
 it is irrational or illogical, it has to be interpreted so 
 as to make it rational and logical. If it has reference 
 to antiquated views, customs or institutions it has to be 
 adapted to the corresponding modern views and to ex- 
 isting conditions. 
 
 An instance from practical life will explain the last 
 point. There are many institutions in Northern Ger- 
 many which were founded as cloisters or monasteries. 
 The nuns and monks have been engaged partly in 
 teaching, partly in attending to the sick, and in other 
 useful pursuits. The funds of these institutions exist 
 still, and serve now those purposes directly which they 
 have formerly served indirectly through the service of 
 
ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 109 
 
 nuns and monks. Most of them are employed for the 
 maintenance of schools, some of them as hospitals, 
 others as homes for unmarried daughters of govern- 
 ment officials, or for homeless aristocratic ladies with- 
 out means, etc. These changes have been wrought by 
 history as the natural consequence of new conditions. 
 Many of them were made in actual violation of the 
 letter of the testators' will; yet they were made bona 
 fide with the intention of remaining faithful to its spirit. 
 The question is not what a testator intended his will 
 to be half a millennium ago, but what he would intend 
 it to be in the living present, knowing all the changes 
 which the progress of the times have wrought and 
 having progressed with the times. 
 
 Before we answer the question, What is the pur- 
 pose of the minister's oath? we should first see clearly, 
 what is the purpose of the church. Is the purpose of 
 the church really to be sought in the propaganda of 
 some absurd dogmas? Or does not rather the preach- 
 ing of these dogmas itself serve a purpose? 
 
 The dogmas of Christianity were some time ago 
 supposed to be the indispensable instruments of ethical 
 instruction. All the churches are educational institu- 
 tions to inculcate the moral ought on the basis of a 
 popular world-conception. The Church of England, for 
 instance, is a national institution and it is not true that 
 one church party has the right to impose its religious 
 conception upon the rest of the nation. When the 
 church was founded some crude notions were taken to 
 be absolute truths and no man can at the present time 
 be required to believe these crudities. All institutions 
 
110 ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 
 
 are conservative but most conservative are the courts 
 of justice and the church. The conservatism of juris- 
 prudence is characterized in the saying which appears 
 to be its leading principle fiat justitia et pereat mundus. 
 Jurisprudence too often forgets that the dispensation 
 of justice serves the purpose of sustaining life, of 
 promoting the general welfare and enhancing the pros- 
 perity of the community; it overlooks the spirit and 
 clings to the letter. 
 
 Our justices are inclined to believe that if a new 
 world-conception arises (which by the bye will as we 
 believe not be materialistic nor will it destroy the idea 
 of moral responsibility, although it may change our 
 views about guilt), their whole system of jurisprudence 
 will break down. They are afraid of a pereat justitia 
 et vivat mundus. Justice Schiffer is not at all anxious 
 to prove the truth of the old world-conception ; he is 
 satisfied with proving that the new world-conception is 
 incompatible with the old view of justice. Criminal 
 law means punishment and punishment presupposes 
 the idea of guilt. He argues : 
 
 "The question remains whether the conflict between the 
 new and the old world-conception could be avoided by adapt- 
 ing our views of justice to the new world-conception; yet this 
 question is to be denied, for the notions of guilt and punish- 
 ment belong to each other according to logical, ethical, and 
 moral principles. To punish without assuming guilt is as non- 
 sensical as it is immoral." 
 
 It would lead us too far here to show that moral 
 responsibility still subsists on the supposition of a strict 
 determinism and that the criminal law with its punish- 
 ments will not be abolished in the future. Yet there 
 
ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 111 
 
 is no doubt that our views of punishment will have to 
 be changed ; indeed they have changed, and how much 
 they have changed can be learned by a comparison of 
 an execution of today with one of a few hundred years 
 ago. The idea of punishment in the sense of inflicting 
 pain as a retribution has gone and it has gone forever. 
 There is no more burning of the criminal with hot 
 irons, or twitching with hot tongs, or tearing out his 
 tongue, or stretching on the wheel. The criminal is 
 executed with as little pain to him as possible. Why 
 this change? Because a new world-conception has en- 
 tirely altered our views of punishment and it is going 
 to alter them still more. Penology is not to be based 
 upon sentimentality as some so-called philanthropists 
 intend to do ; nevertheless it is so and it will become 
 humane, because we have abandoned the old concep- 
 tion of guilt which, as Justice Schiffer correctly states, 
 was a fundamental idea in the old jurisprudence, and 
 this antiquated conception of guilt has partly but not 
 as yet entirely been overcome. 
 
 The church is in a position similar to that of the 
 criminal law courts. A change of our world-conception 
 has set in and the church is not as yet adapted to the 
 change. The church having found it necessary for its 
 purpose of preaching ethics to insist on the belief in a 
 world-conception which demonstrates a moral world 
 order, now attempts to perpetuate certain errors of our 
 ancestors' conception of this moral world-order. 
 
 The oath of a clergyman having been asked and 
 given bona fide on the supposition that the dogmas of 
 
112 ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 
 
 the church were the truth, holds good still, but it must 
 be construed as in similar cases a judge would have 
 to construe a faulty will or an ill-worded law. It has 
 to be construed in the spirit and not in the letter. 
 
 Clergymen who have grown liberal should not 
 leave the church. It is their duty to stay in the church 
 and to make their influence felt to broaden the spirit 
 of the church. If the church removes them from their 
 position, they yield to the authority at present in power, 
 but they should not yield without a struggle, to be con- 
 ducted on their part modestly but firmly, with rever- 
 ence toward their authorities, with tact and decency, 
 but fearlessly and bravely, for they are fighting not 
 only for their personal interests but for the progress 
 of mankind, they are fighting for the holiest treasure 
 of the church — for truth. 
 
 The abolition of these burdens on the consciences 
 of the clergy would be a natural consequence of re- 
 peated struggles. Let a pastor be bound to respect his 
 church authorities, to obey them in all matters of ad- 
 ministration, let him be bound to revere the ecclesias- 
 tical traditions of which he should never speak lightly, 
 but do not prescribe to him a belief of any kind. Pledge 
 him to serve the truth, to speak the truth and to live 
 the truth ; and that simple pledge will have more weight 
 than the requirement to believe dogmas which, his su- 
 periors know but too well, can no longer be believed 
 literally but must be taken cum grano salts. 
 
 Christ says concerning the observances insisted 
 upon by the Scribes and Pharisees : "They bind heavy 
 burdens and grievous to be borne: and lay them upon 
 
ALLEGIANCE TO DOGMA 113 
 
 men's shoulders." This passage is applicable also to 
 the present system of ordination. Christ's saying is 
 read in the churches and it is, as most of his words 
 are, as new today as it was at his time, but who thinks 
 of its application to our present system of burdening 
 the consciences of men? 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT. 
 
 THE Open Court Publishing Company was founded 
 to serve as a center for an earnest and thorough- 
 going reformation of religion under the influence of 
 science, and in working to this end it has combined a 
 fearless radicalism with a reverent conservatism. Its 
 founder* as well as its manager, together with most of 
 its friends, are convinced that this is the only correct 
 attitude, and that, therefore, the publications of the 
 Open Court Publishing Company are leading in the 
 right direction on the path of progress, foreordained in 
 the history of mankind by the law of evolution. 
 
 The Open Court discusses the philosophical prob- 
 lems of God and soul, of life and death, and life after 
 death, the problems of the origin of man and the sig- 
 nificance of religion, and the nature of morality, occa- 
 sionally including political and social life without, how- 
 ever, entering into party questions. 
 
 Since we can not build up the future without com- 
 prehending the present, and since the present has 
 grown from the past and finds its explanation in the 
 history of bygone ages, we deem it necessary to discuss 
 not only philosophical problems but to enter also into 
 
 ["Founded in 1887 by Edward C. Hegeler of LaSalle, Illinois. Dr. 
 Paul Carus has been editor and manager since 1888.] 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 115 
 
 the questions of the history of religion, presenting the 
 results of Biblical research, of Babylonian and Egyp- 
 tian excavations, the religions of Egypt, of India and of 
 China, and kindred topics, all of which directly or indi- 
 rectly throw light on the origin and significance of our 
 own religion today. None of them, be it ever so re- 
 mote in space or time, but possesses some intense in- 
 terest to us, either by having contributed to the makeup 
 of our own souls or by affording a parallel to the de- 
 velopment of Christianity, or even constituting a con- 
 trast to it, so as to become interesting on account of its 
 very difference. 
 
 SCIENCE THE REFORMER 
 
 This is an age of science. Science is surely though 
 slowly transforming the world. Science reveals to us 
 secrets of nature and explains the constitution of the 
 universe as regulated by unfailing law. Science guides 
 the inventor's hands and makes things possible which 
 in former days were deemed attainable only by magic. 
 
 Science is the attainment of truth through methods 
 of exact inquiry. Its aim is a statement of truth veri- 
 fied by rational proof, by experience, and experiment. 
 
 The influence of science upon practical life is not 
 limited to the domains of industry, commerce, trans- 
 portation, and the methods of communication by mail, 
 telegraph, telephone, etc., but extends also to the intel- 
 lectual and moral fields. It does away with ignorance, 
 narrowness and bigotry, but while it overcomes super- 
 stition, it will not usher in an age of irreligion ; on the 
 
116 THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 
 
 contrary it will make the future more intensely re- 
 ligious, for under our very eyes it is bringing about a 
 salutary and much needed reformation. 
 
 Now it is true that science applied to religion has 
 wrought much havoc with the traditional interpretation 
 of established creeds. Philosophy recognizes the an- 
 thropomorphism of the old God-conception; psychol- 
 ogy discredits the traditional theory of a soul-entity; 
 comparative religion dispels the claim of the unique 
 and exceptional position of Christianity ; higher criti- 
 cism proves the human origin of the Bible and dis- 
 poses of a belief in special revelation. For these rea- 
 sons science has been regarded as hostile to religion, 
 and so the old-fashioned religionists look upon science 
 as godless and dangerous, while the freethinkers and 
 infidels triumphantly proclaim that science will make 
 an end of religion and the future will be an age of 
 irreligious science. 
 
 To a superficial observer the spread of unbelief 
 may appear to be a symptom of decay, foreboding a 
 final dissolution of religion, but a deeper insight will 
 reveal the fact that we live in a stage of transition, 
 and the disintegration of dogmatism is merely prepara- 
 tory to a reconstruction of our religious faith on a 
 firmer foundation, — firmer because truer, and it is a 
 reconstruction because it will discard only the errors 
 of the past, but not the good that it contains, not the 
 old ideals, the moral endeavor, and the serious spirit 
 of religious aspirations. 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 117 
 
 EVOLUTION 
 
 We reject the traditional interpretation of religion 
 because we can no longer believe its dogmas, but we do 
 not join in the hue and cry against religion. While 
 we realize the imperfections of all current creeds, we 
 do not look upon their existence as evil. On the con- 
 trary, we recognize them as powerful factors for good 
 and as an indispensable preparation for the religion of 
 the future. Churches may be deficient in many re- 
 spects, but they are much-needed organizations, and 
 we cherish no hostility toward them. We are too much 
 convinced of the truth of evolution as a general prin- 
 ciple of all life, not to apply it also to the spiritual 
 domains of civilization, morality and religion. We 
 can not begin the development of life over again sim- 
 ply because the present state of things is imperfect. 
 We believe that the future of mankind must be built 
 upon the past, and we must evolve the living present 
 by way of progress and reform; not by a revolution 
 or a destruction of the old traditions and former ex- 
 periences. The future can not obliterate the past, but 
 must use it as the foundation for a higher and truer 
 religion. 
 
 FULFILMENT NOT DESTRUCTION 
 
 We must not identify religion with the religious 
 superstitions of the past; we must bear in mind that 
 all progress leads to truth through error. Truth — in 
 science as well as in religion — is first groped after in 
 a search which instinctively divines the right solution 
 and formulates it first in a childlike way, then more 
 
118 THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 
 
 and more clearly, until finally an exact statement be- 
 comes possible. 
 
 The path to truth naturally passes through myth 
 and allegory, through a representation in parables, 
 through mysticism and other visionary approximations, 
 to a scientific comprehension of the actual state of 
 things, and this law of intellectual evolution holds 
 good not only for religion, but also for the sciences 
 and the arts. 
 
 Science has not originated fully equipped and 
 ready made as Athene came with her entire armament 
 from the head of Zeus. The mythological period was 
 as much an indispensable phase in the history of sci- 
 ence, as in the history of religion. Alchemy prepared 
 the way for chemistry, and a close scrutiny of the his- 
 tory of knowledge will reveal that this law of gradual 
 development holds good for all the sciences, indeed for 
 all the different domains of life and also for religion. 
 
 Religious institutions are more conservative than 
 any other of the affairs of human life; therefore it 
 is natural that the magic conception perseveres longer 
 in the religious domain than elsewhere, but as surely 
 as astrology has changed into astronomy, so theology 
 will become theonomy, i. e., a truly scientific concep- 
 tion of God. 
 
 THE ROOT OF RELIGION 
 
 Originally religion is not clear and conscious. It 
 appears first as a vague impulse, but as a rule (though 
 not always) it is an impulse for good. The religious 
 sentiment develops from a quality inherent in all be- 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN CObRT 119 
 
 ings, nay in all things. It is a quality akin to gravity 
 that attracts mass to mass and holds together all ma- 
 terial things. An analogous law sways the domain 
 of sentiency, for every living soul is naturally en- 
 dowed with a longing beyond its own self, a yearning 
 for otherness, and an anxiety not to lose its connection 
 with the whole of which it is a part. This sentiment, 
 which may fitly be called panpathy or all-feeling, is 
 the germ from which spring all our ideals, first social 
 and erotic, then religious and ethical, and also artistic 
 and scientific. 
 
 Religion is ultimately sentiment, but it is also 
 thought and will. It is in command of the three H's, 
 the Heart, the Head, and the Hand. As sentiment it 
 resides in the Heart, as thought it directs the work of 
 the Head, as will it guides the Hand. In different 
 men it will manifest itself differently in one way or 
 another, but it will not be perfect unless it dominates 
 the whole man, his heart, his head, and his hand. 
 
 GOD 
 
 Life is transient and every happening, whether good 
 or evil, pleasant or unpleasant, praiseworthy or de- 
 testable, will pass by. Nothing bodily can endure and 
 all things that have originated must come to an end. 
 Man is no exception to the rule, and his individuality 
 rises into being and is doomed finally to dissolution. 
 Yet man possesses the divine spark of reason. He 
 sees the universal in the particular, eternal in the tran- 
 sient, and the general law in its concrete realization; 
 and so he longs to find his anchorage in the bottom- 
 
120 THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 
 
 rock of all existence. Under the influence of the hu- 
 manity of man, of his reason, and his spiritual com- 
 prehension of things, his panpathy broadens into a 
 love of the eternal, the infinite, the all-hood of exist- 
 ence. 
 
 This is the ultimate norm of life which dominates 
 the world with the necessity of natural law, irrefra- 
 gable and without allowing exceptions; this the ulti- 
 mate authority upon which finally all moral maxims 
 are founded, and this the standard of truth and un- 
 truth, of right and wrong, of justice and injustice. 
 We call it God, and we believe that even the atheist 
 will not be prepared to deny its existence. This God 
 is a reality undeniable and as sure as our own being; 
 for without it, reason would be impossible, science 
 would not exist, purposive action could not take place, 
 ideals and moral aspirations would be illusions, and 
 the universe, instead of a law-ordained cosmos, would 
 be a meaningless chaos. 
 
 Religion makes man feel himself one with the 
 source of life, it identifies him with the law of being, 
 and prompts him to work for the purport of the whole. 
 
 THE DUTY OF INQUIRY 
 
 The idea that our knowledge of religious truth is 
 and should be final is characteristic of the period of 
 dogmatism, but it is an error that is gradually dis- 
 appearing. Dogmatism with its persecutions and 
 heresy trials is fast passing away. We know now that 
 our interpretation of religious doctrines has undergone 
 changes and that these changes are necessary. Even 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 121 
 
 St. Paul confesses of the message which he had for 
 the world, that "now we see through a glass, darkly," 
 and he understands that congregations in a state of 
 babyhood must be fed on milk but that the time will 
 come when they will put away childish things. 
 
 The ideal of a perfect religion is most assuredly 
 not, as a few reactionary advocates of the past would 
 have it, blind faith, being a belief in doctrines even 
 though they be a contradiction of science and a con- 
 demnation of all that by application of exact methods 
 can be discovered as truth. Our ideal of religion can 
 only be an actualization of truth itself, and by truth 
 we understand truth pure and simple, not a mystical 
 statement of visions and imaginary revelations, purely 
 subjective conceptions and oracular utterances, im- 
 pressive though they may be to the large masses of 
 mankind, but truth objectively verified by the maturest 
 and most painstaking investigations of science. 
 
 Some devout believers resent the investigation of 
 their dearest beliefs; but would it be advisable to in- 
 vestigate all that appertains to our bodily welfare and 
 regard our religious belief as exempt, too sacred for 
 inquiry, and thus leave them to the haphazard of tra- 
 dition? This would be a mistaken policy. If religion 
 is of the right kind it must be true, and if our religious 
 conceptions are erroneous, it is our most sacred duty to 
 revise them and make them true. 
 
 THE DIVINITY OF SCIENCE 
 
 It is a mistake to look upon science as secular and 
 profane while religious dogmas are deemed sacred. 
 
122 THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 
 
 All truth is sacred and dogmas can be sacred only if in 
 the garb of symbolism they contain truths that can 
 stand the test of scientific criticism. 
 
 Science, if it be but genuine science, is not human, 
 but super-human. Science is divine. Scientists do not 
 make science, they search for it and they discover 
 scientific truths. Science is a revelation in the true 
 and original sense of the word. 
 
 In the history of mankind the recognition of moral 
 truths such as the wisdom of the golden rule, our need 
 of justice, the bliss of righteousness, the power of a 
 heart animated with universal good will, have mostly 
 come to man by instinctive intuition, in a similar way 
 as a poet is inspired to give expression to thoughts 
 prophetic which are grander than his age; and there- 
 fore we will not say that science alone is revelation; 
 sentiment, devotion, art, poetry, etc., are also channels 
 of the divine spirit; but science (i. e., genuine exact 
 science) is certainly unique in its way because of the 
 sureness of its steps and the reliability of its results. 
 Therefore it can not be disregarded in our religious 
 life and the time in which it will produce most glorious 
 results is near at hand. 
 
 THE OLD TERMS IN A NEW SENSE 
 
 Critics of our position in both the ultra-conservative 
 and the ultra-radical fields, blame us for using the old 
 terms of religious nomenclature in a new interpreta- 
 tion, but we answer them that we do so because we 
 are convinced that this is the right method of pro- 
 cedure justified not only by precedent but also by a 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 123 
 
 correct comprehension of the law of progress. Even 
 our scientific terms are an inheritance from a pre- 
 scientific era. We speak of sunrise still, though every 
 child knows that the sun does not rise, it merely 
 seems to rise; electricians call the oscillations in the 
 ether ''currents," as if they were like a flow of water 
 in rivers, yet we know that they are waves passing 
 through a medium that is comparatively stationary. 
 The process is an infinitely rapid transfer of a certain 
 form of motion, but no flow, no current, no streaming 
 of any kind. Yet the word is used and an attempt to 
 discard it would merely elicit smiles, for it is next to 
 impossible to have a scientific nomenclature free from 
 allegory or terms that remind us of the prescientific 
 period of mythical notions. 
 
 The truth of the matter is that it is easier to con- 
 tinue using the old terms in a new sense than to invent 
 new terms. It is natural for man to name things as 
 they first strike him and then investigate their nature 
 and describe them in exact definitions. 
 
 Religion is not an exception, but in this it simply 
 follows the general law of life. No religious reform 
 will succeed unless the innovations are a product of 
 the past and are felt to be so. In using the old terms 
 in a new sense we are confident that we preserve the 
 old spirit and give it a deeper and better interpretation. 
 
 We believe in evolution and believe that man has 
 attained his present position by an intellectual growth 
 which is but the consistent outcome of the old aspira- 
 tions and an actualization of the ideals of a conviction 
 formerly regarded as orthodox, of a religion of right 
 
124 THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 
 
 doctrine; and the change came about because the sa- 
 lient points of truth, of the attainment of truth, and of 
 the right doctrine were taken seriously. 
 
 THE GOD OF TRUTH 
 
 The first condition in religion is always sincerity 
 and honesty, i. e., a love of truth, a free acknowledg- 
 ment of what must be conceded to be true, and above 
 all an earnest endeavor to actualize the truth in our 
 life. 
 
 This is an old aspiration and we simply draw the 
 ultimate conclusion of its consistent application. We 
 read in the first book of Esdras a passage which de- 
 serves to be quoted and requoted. 
 
 "As for the truth, it endureth, and is always strong ; 
 it liveth and conquereth for evermore. 
 
 "With her there is no accepting of persons or re- 
 wards; but she doeth the things that are just and re- 
 fraineth from all unjust and wicked things; and all 
 men do well like of her works. 
 
 "Neither in her judgment is any unrighteousness; 
 and she is the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty, 
 of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth." 
 
 NO SUBSTITUTE 
 
 Sometimes men who observe and regret the break- 
 down of the traditional forms of faith, express the de- 
 sire for a substitute for religion. We sympathize with 
 their sentiment, though we would not brook surrogates, 
 for we want the genuine article. But we claim at the 
 same time that the religion of truth is no substitute. 
 On the contrary, it is the true religion, and all pre- 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 125 
 
 vious religions have been mere temporary makeshifts ; 
 they are preliminary statements whose main value con- 
 sists in the fact that they should develop into a more 
 perfect form. This more perfect form has to be 
 worked out in the slow process of mental growth, and 
 when it comes, it will fulfill all its hopes, as much as 
 the maturity of a perfect manhood actualizes the fond 
 dreams of our childhood. 
 
 Upon the principles here set forth, we advocate a 
 religious reformation with new conceptions of God, 
 of the soul, of immortality, of inspiration, of revela- 
 tion, and all other factors of our religious life. 
 
 Religion is not belief of any kind, it is not church 
 membership, not mere devotion, not the performance 
 of ritual, not the lip service of prayer; religion is 
 part of our own being; it is the dominant idea of our 
 soul, and it is characteristic of religion that it com- 
 prises the entire man, his sentiment, his will and his 
 intellect. Religion is always a world-conception in 
 which our relation to the All of life finds its determina- 
 tion. As such it consists of ideas, commonly formu- 
 lated in doctrines. These ideas, however, are not 
 purely intellectual, they possess an emotional charac- 
 ter and are rooted deeply in the subconscious regions 
 of our being. They link our life to the All and repre- 
 sent, as it were, the will of the universe. Being a 
 power within us they are mightier than we and govern 
 our will, frequently in spite of ourselves. 
 
126 THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 
 
 DIFFERENCE AND UNITY IN RELIGION 
 
 The different religions appear from this standpoint 
 as aspirations all striving to reach the same goal. They 
 are by no means equal, for very few of them approach, 
 much less attain to their common ideal. They differ in 
 many respects, especially in their general attitude 
 toward the world. Sometimes the attitude in religion 
 is a matter of interpretation, and it may happen that 
 two sects of different religions possess the same gen- 
 eral attitude and thereby become more akin the one to 
 the other than each of them is to other sects of its own 
 faith. Aside from differences of attitude there is an 
 agreement among the several religions in moral max- 
 ims which is well nigh universal, and has given a strong 
 support to the view that they, the moral maxims, 
 are the essential feature of religious life. It is pos- 
 sible, even probable, that all religions on earth — nay 
 on other planets also, wherever rational beings develop 
 religion with its cosmic ideals — the same morality will 
 be preached reflecting the same conviction as to the 
 essential constitution of the universe, though they may 
 be expressed in different symbols. There are inci- 
 dental features which naturally diverge in different 
 localities, so we must learn to discriminate between 
 the essential and the accidental and must respect the 
 common religious spirit without taking offense at dif- 
 ferences. 
 
 THE FUTURE 
 
 Mankind is one and has the tendency to become 
 one more and more. Families coalesce into tribes, 
 
THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 127 
 
 tribes combine into nations and nations develop inter- 
 national relations from which a cosmopolitan spirit 
 is bound to spring; and as it is in politics so it will be in 
 religion. Rituals and symbols may vary according to 
 taste, historical tradition, and opinion, but the essence 
 of religion can only be one, it must be and remain one 
 and the same among all nations, and they all search 
 for this common ideal, the religion of truth pure and 
 undefiled. The sooner mankind recognizes it, the bet- 
 ter it will be for progress, welfare, and all international 
 relations, for it will bring "glory to God in the high- 
 est, and on earth peace toward the men of good will." 
 
 We can see as in a prophetic vision the future of 
 mankind ; when the religion of love and good will has 
 become the dominating spirit that finally determines 
 the legislatures of the nations and regulates their in- 
 ternational and home politics. Religion is not alone 
 for the churches, but the churches are for the world, in 
 which the field of our duties lies. The churches have 
 to travel the same way as we ; religion develops in con- 
 verging lines with philosophy and science, and at the 
 point where they meet there lies our common goal. 
 
 The essentials of religion are always questions of 
 morality, and morality is nothing but an application 
 of truth to the issues of practical life. So far as acci- 
 dentals are concerned we may without quarrel have as 
 many religions as there are differences in temperament 
 and preferences in externalities, but in all essentials it 
 is possible, — nay it is desirable, and it will finally be 
 necessary to come to an agreement. 
 
 Here is the whole religious problem in a nutshell. 
 
128 THE WORK OF THE OPEN COURT 
 
 What we need is truth and what we want is truth; 
 there is no salvation except in truth. The truly re- 
 ligious man is he alone who is truthful, he who seeks 
 the truth, he who trusts in the truth, he who loves 
 the truth, he who identifies himself with the truth, and 
 above all he who lives the truth. 
 
 O let us to ourselves be true, 
 
 And true to others ever; 
 The trust in Truth inspire our souls 
 
 And dominate our endeavor; 
 
 The spirit of Truth descend on us 
 
 With consecrative vigor 
 To lift us up, to strengthen us, 
 
 Our whole life to transfigure. 
 
 If we're but truthful, O what bliss! 
 
 Life loses all its terror. 
 For Godward every step will be 
 
 And Truthward e'en through error. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Absolute verities, 76. 
 Acumen, scientific, 38 
 Agnosticism, 42, 58. 
 Ahab, King, 87. 
 Alchemy, 118. 
 Alexander, S., 67. 
 Allegiance, an oath of, 105. 
 Allegories, 80. 
 All of life, the, 125. 
 Ammunah, 25. 
 Arnet, Bishop B. W., 5. 
 Assassins, the god of, 88. 
 Atheistic religions, 93, 97. 
 Athene, 118. 
 
 Authority, of the moral ought, 
 God is the, 24, 50. 
 
 Baal, the prophets of, 87. 
 Bible, 65, 81. 
 Biblical criticism, 81. 
 Bliss, immortal, 13, 123. 
 Blue laws, the famous, 23. 
 Briggs, Dr., 12. 
 Buckle and Lecky, 22. 
 Buddha, 7. 
 Buddhism, 17, 93. 
 Burning bush, the, 73. 
 Butler's argument, 68. 
 
 Calvin's view, 75. 
 
 Candid Examination of Theism by 
 
 Physicus, 55. 
 Carpenter of the world, the, 67. 
 Carus, Paul, 114. 
 Causation, the wheel of, 13. 
 Cause, first, 66. 
 Chemistry, 44. 
 Christianity, two kinds of, 5. 
 
 narrow, 11. 
 Christ's contemporaries, 65. 
 
 Christ, the preachings of, 31. 
 Church of England, the, 109. 
 Clergyman, the oath of a, 111. 
 Confession, 75. 
 Confucius, 75, 93. 
 Conservatism, religious, 34. 
 Conway, Moncure D., 105. 
 Cook, Joseph, 4. 
 Councils, ecumenical, 10. 
 Creed, revision of a, 74. 
 
 D'Arby, Father, 20. 
 
 Darwin, 29, 39. 
 
 Deborah, 31. 
 
 Delegates, the heathen, 7. 
 
 Demonology, Christian, 58. 
 
 Der Zweck im Recht, 108. 
 
 Devil, the, 35. 
 
 Dhammapada, the, 31. 
 
 Divinity of scientific truth, the, 
 
 43, 121. 
 Dogmas, codified, 34, 36, 37, 43, 
 
 99, 120. 
 Drummond, Henry, 12. 
 Dwelling place of God, the, 73. 
 Dwight, Rev. H. O., 15. 
 
 Edison, 89. 
 
 Elijah's experiment, 86. 
 
 Emerson, 92. 
 
 Epoch, a new, 84. 
 
 Esdras, the first book of, 124. 
 
 Eternal punishment, 75. 
 
 Ethical systems, 93. 
 
 Evolution, the doctrine of, 54. 
 
 Fallacies, 45. 
 
 Fanatic, the Hindu, 6. 
 
 Faust, 35, 96. 
 
 Formula, a scientific, 92. 
 
 Freedom of thought, 104. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Freethinkers, 36. 
 Fulfilment, 117. 
 
 Gakkuwai, Bukkyo, 17. 
 
 Gefiihl ist alias, 96. 
 
 German Army Bill, the, 18. 
 
 Gibbons, Cardinal, 4. 
 
 God, an idea of moral import, 24, 
 
 54, 83, 85, 87, 89, 95. 
 Goethe, 82, 89. 
 Gore, Charles, 58. 
 Gutenberg, 89. 
 
 Hadubrand, 104. 
 
 Hanoon, Shereef, 15. 
 
 Hatred, 31. 
 
 Hegeler, Edward C, 114. 
 
 Heresy trials, 120. 
 
 Higher Criticism, 79. 
 
 Hildebrand, the old Teutonic song 
 
 of, 103. 
 Holy Ghost, the sin against the, 
 
 71. 
 Holy Spirit, the, 54. 
 H's, the three, 119. 
 Humboldt, 82. 
 Hume, Rev. R. G., 8. 
 Huxley, 26, 44. 
 
 Infidel, when a faithful Christian 
 
 turns, 35. 
 Inquisition, the fagots of an, 6. 
 Instinct, truths by, 29. 
 Iranian epic, Firdusi's great, 104. 
 Islam, the spirit of, 7. 
 Israel, the people of, 82. 
 
 Jacob's ladder, 46. 
 
 Jainism, 8. 
 
 Jephtha, 94. 
 
 Jerusalem, 18. 
 
 Jhering, Rudolf von, 107. 
 
 Jones, Jenkin Lloyd, 4. 
 
 Keane, Bishop, 3, 9. 
 Know thyself, 56. 
 Koran, the, 15. 
 Krishna, 14. 
 
 Lamarck, 89. 
 
 Latas, Most Dev. Dionysios, 4. 
 
 Law, criminal, 101. 
 
 L'irreligion de I'avenir, 22. 
 
 Logos, 45. 
 
 Love, 31. 
 
 Ludwig II., King of Bavaria, 106. 
 
 Luther, 77. 
 
 Lycurgus and Solon, 104. 
 
 Mach, Ernst, 30, 32, 52. 
 
 Massaquoi, Prince Momolu, 14. 
 
 Middle Ages, the, 24. 
 
 Mind, infinite, 66. 
 
 Moltke, Von, 71. 
 
 Monk, the great Hindu, 10. 
 
 Moses, 31. 
 
 Mozoomdar, the Rev., 12. 
 
 Muller, Max, 12, 52. 
 
 Multiplication table, ethics in the, 
 
 47. 
 Mythology, 38. 
 
 Nagarkar, B. R., 8. 
 Newtonian formulas, 92. 
 
 CEdipus, 56. 
 
 Open Court Publishing Company, 
 
 publications of the, 52, 114. 
 Orthodoxy, 41, 72, 79, 80. 
 
 Palestine, 24. 
 
 Parables, 38. 
 
 Parliament of Religions, the, 1, 18. 
 
 Parseeism, 14. 
 
 Penology, 111. 
 
 Perry, Ralph Barton, 92. 
 
 Phariseeism, 20. 
 
 Phenomena, religious, 98. 
 
 Piety, 82. 
 
 Platforms of the various churches, 
 
 48. 
 Presbyterian Church, 75. 
 Problem, the whole religious, 127. 
 Progress, religious, 10. 
 Rain-makers, 88. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Reason is the light of man's life, 
 
 70. 
 Reformation, the, 84, 116. 
 Religion of the future, the, 20, 
 
 40, 63, 94, 97, 126. 
 Revelation, cosmic, 90. 
 Rexford, E. L., 4. 
 Ribot, Th., 52. 
 Rituals and symbols, 127. 
 Roman Catholic Church, the, 3. 
 Romanes, George John, 52, 57. 
 Root of Religion, the, 118. 
 Rustem's struggle with Sohrab, 
 
 104. 
 
 Sacrifices, the hardest of these, 
 
 68. 
 Schleiermacher, 68, 94. 
 Schweinfurth, 65. 
 Science is divine, 25, 116. 
 Scribes and Pharisees, the, 112. 
 Scriptures, the, 84. 
 Self, 20, 47. 
 Shakespeare, 89. 
 Shibata, the Rt. Rev. Reuchi, 2. 
 Shinto, 3. 
 
 Siam, Prince of, 16. 
 Sisera, Jael's treacherous murder 
 
 of, 31. 
 Sneak-thieves, a patron of, 85. 
 Socrates, 75. 
 Somaj, Brahmo, 12. 
 Spinoza, 31. 
 
 St. John, the Apostle, 33. 
 St. Paul, 32, 37. 
 Strauss, D. F., 68. 
 
 Sunrise, 123. 
 
 Superstition, 43. 
 
 Syllogism, A., 44. 
 
 Symbols, 44. 
 
 Symbolum, the Christian, 49. 
 
 Tcheraz, Prof. Minas, 16. 
 
 Teed, 65. 
 
 Theism, the problem of, 55. 
 
 Theonomy, 118. 
 
 Thoughts on religion, 55, 71. 
 
 Traditional conceptions, 43. 
 
 Transformed, the old, 89. 
 
 Tribal Deity of Israel, the, 83. 
 
 Trust in truth, 128. 
 
 Truth, religion of, 21, 27. 
 
 Unbelief, the spread of, 116. 
 Unitarianism, Hindu, 12. 
 United States, the, 18. 
 
 Vatican, the, 1. 
 Vedas, the, 12. 
 Vivekananda, Swami, 4, 14. 
 Voice, the inner, 72. 
 Volney, and the idea of holding 
 a parliament of religions, 2. 
 
 Washburn, Rev. George, 14. 
 
 Watts, James, 89. 
 
 Webb, Mohammed Alexander 
 Russell, 7. 
 
 World's Religious Parliament Ex- 
 tension, 19. 
 
 Yahveh, 87. 
 
 Yu, Pung Quang, 4. 
 
 Zarathustra, 14. 
 
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