34 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion. The decline of intelligence and of our power to control circum- 

 stances may be conceived as beginning when old ideas are advocated 

 merely because the first impression is that they are plausible, and par- 

 ticularly when certain books, purely intellectual, are avoided merely 

 because the reader fears to find something unanswerable and convinc- 

 ing. By all means let us have free trade in ideas, from the theory of 

 materialization advanced by Robert Dale Owen at one extreme to the 

 scientific exactness of Herbert Spencer at the other. Let there be no 

 protection of ideas, and let each one maintain its hold by virtue of its 

 truth and power. Owing to the varying tendencies and views of men, 

 the truth overlooked by one may be seen by another, so that if we en- 

 courage the expression of peculiar combinations or combining powers 

 in minds, much suffering arising from our lack of knowledge may be 

 escaped. Those who do not realize the value of ideas ought to reflect 

 that, largely owing to our want of ingenuity and perception, we are 

 still in the main at the mercy of particles in ways which could be 

 spared us if we knew or had discovered more, or had more control of 

 the onward march of the closely knit network of events and influences 

 that make up our short lives. Lack of observation in a trifling mat- 

 ter, or short-sighted heed to the convenience of the present hour, may 

 restrict the possible development of the finest powers, and so the de- 

 velopment of intelligence, by widening these limits, indirectly as well 

 as directly, may add to the power of men in a steadily increasing pro- 

 portion. Those who do not see the helping power of science, or at 

 least the promise of it, ought to remember that every omission to use 

 the best intelligence in themselves, or to encourage it in others, results 

 in a continuance of the amount of pain and disappointment now exist- 

 ing, which can only be lessened by the general development of intel- 

 ligence, and by the use of the increasingly difficult and more subtile 

 researches of men of science. 



-++- 



RELIGIOUS RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT.* 



By HEEBEET SPENCEE. 



TNLIKE the ordinary consciousness, the religious consciousness is 



v-J concerned with that which lies beyond the sphere of sense. A 



brute thinks only of things which can be touched, seen, heard, tasted, 



etc. ; and the like is true of the untaught child, the deaf-mute, and 



the lowest savage. But the developing man has thoughts about ex- 



* This article will eventually form the closing chapter of " Ecclesiastical Institutions " 

 Part VI of " The Principles of Sociology." The statements concerning matters of fact 

 in the first part of it are based on the contents of preceding chapters. Evidence for near- 

 ly all of them, however, may also be found in Part I of " The Principles of Sociology," 

 already published. 



