SCIENCE AND CONSCIENCE. 15 



the comprehension of particulai-s, and as human beings have succeeded 

 in understanding themselves they have thrown aside the convenient 

 habit of dividing the rest of the world into vast homogeneous classes, 

 and have recognized the dignity and importance of each individual of 

 the race. This is most vividly reflected in the literature of the present 

 day. We find in the romantic movement an expression of the renewed 

 interest in man and nature : this interest was mainly felt at first sim- 

 ply in their picturesqueness ; modern realism shuns the picturesque, 

 as one form of the romantic exaggeration, and endeavors to treat hu- 

 man life as the man of science treats the objects of his study. 



It would be singular if religion remained untouched by these move- 

 ments. There would be no precedent for its escape from the common 

 fate of all branches of thought. The Reformation was a democratic 

 revolution. That its original fervor died out, and was succeeded by 

 imitation of the forms that it had bitterly fought, is well known. 

 When, toward the end of the last century, the great outburst of 

 Methodism startled the Church of England out of its lethargy, it was 

 not so clear as it is now that religion was experiencing the same 

 change that was mating over politics and literature. The campaigns of 

 the Salvation Army, so far as they have more than mere temporary im- 

 portance, give proof that lower social circles are feeling the general 

 excitement. Can we suppose that the most important subject of man's 

 thought is disregarded at the present time ? Far from it ; we see in 

 the modification of the demands it makes on society a great change in 

 religious feeling. We may observe the general relaxation of formal 

 bonds in the more liberal ground that is taken by even the more con- 

 servative sects, and in the fact that the others insist rather on right- 

 eous living than on rigid belief. 



May not some of this spirit of toleration be due to the recognition 

 of the fact that laxity of belief does not necessarily connote immoral- 

 ity ? Are not society and theology tending toward a generally accept- 

 able modus vivendi? Is not ecclesiasticism dwindling before the 

 change which has made itself felt in politics and literature, that is, 

 before the growing importance of the individual? If this phrase 

 meant that the individual has simply grown in conceit, the result 

 would be absolutely intolerable ; but if it implies that there has been 

 greater development in the notions of right and wrong, and a more 

 general recognition of the rights of conscience rather than of an out- 

 side force, the change, if it exists, may not be for the worse. The 

 examination of these questions is a difficult matter. Some will answer 

 them, without delay, in accordance with their already fixed opinions ; 

 and any one who gives them any consideration must be ready to ac- 

 knowledge the difficulty of judging the present in anything like a 

 satisfactory way. Contemporary life obviously lacks the perspective 

 which is necessary to set in their proper place what is important and 

 what is merely trivial and ephemeral. Yet we have before us a cer- 



