SCIENCE AND MORALITY 287 



of those teachings. It was taught that Jesus was the son of God 

 himself, miraculously conceived; the doctrine of the Trinity was in- 

 vented and more stress came to he laid on the value of believing these 

 doctrines than in doing the things Jesus declared to be good. The 

 doctrine of salvation by faith became dominant and with this became 

 associated many other conceptions, the general effect of which was to 

 paralyze the growth of the germ of good contained in the religion. 

 These conceptions divided man from man, race from race; they taught 

 men to value their own salvation more than the happiness of others, 

 and their general effect was selfish and opposed to the feeling of human 

 brotherhood, which Jesus sought in every way to arouse, and which is 

 the basis of morality. So completely did they modify that religion 

 that they made of it for centuries a blight instead of a blessing, 

 detrimental alike to moral, physical and intellectual progress. On the 

 whole, therefore, it must be admitted that the good produced l^y the 

 Christian religion has not been unmixed with evil. 



Since the Christian religion was built on the same foundation as 

 morality, not morals on that religion, and since the effect of the 

 religion was both good and bad we can understand how it happens that 

 the decadence of theology does not involve the decadence of morality, 

 but may coincide with its improvement. 



Morals, however, have not only not declined; they have actually 

 improved, owing to a change in that instinct on which morality rests. 

 The past century has seen a tremendous growth in the feelings of 

 human brotherhood; the social instinct has been wonderfully stim- 

 ulated. This is the most glorious achievement of science. 



Science besides its material conquests of nature has developed 

 human pity and compassion. It is the greatest preacher of the brother- 

 hood of man since Jesus. Science, as a matter of fact, is developing in 

 us just those feelings Jesus himself sought to arouse. By teaching man 

 the causes of his own conduct, he is filled with charity and pity; by 

 annihilating distance and time, it has broken down artificial barriers 

 between groups of individuals ; and, by the solution of the transporta- 

 tion problem, it has brought distant nations close together. It has 

 shown the human race to be actually one great family, of which the 

 misery of any part necessarily affects the happiness of the whole. The 

 evolutionary hypothesis, the germ theory of disease, the telegraph, the 

 telephone, the locomotive, the printing press, the daily paper, wireless 

 telegraph}^, these are the great moral apostles of the age, for they 

 knit men together, conquer prejudice and extend our sympathies. 

 Every discovery in science is a step forward in morality. Science is, 

 indeed, in this way one of the greatest, if not the greatest, moral infiu- 

 ence the world has beheld. 



But science has done still more for morality than to stimulate 



