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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to the angels, and assumes too confidently that 

 supernatural religion is spiritually defunct, and 

 its advocates ready to own their in efficiency. He 

 is candid and clear-sighted, and sees distinctly 

 that what he calls religion will be called in turn 

 pantheism and paganism by "religious " people. 

 But he trusts too readily that they will be con- 

 vinced that, in using these names, they are mis- 

 calling persons of practically the same creed as 

 themselves. He greatly underrates, one can 

 not help thinking, the power that such concep- 

 tions as miracles, and heaven and hell, exert 

 upon minds that have once firmly grasped them. 

 At times this miscalculation leads him to adopt 

 a tone toward the adherents of supernatural 

 religion which is, to say the least of it, by no 

 means conciliatory. Take, for instance, the fol- 

 lowing sentence : 



"The Eternal and the Infinite and the All- 

 embracing has been represented as the head of 

 the clerical interest, as a sort of clergyman, as 

 a sort of schoolmaster, as a sort of philan- 

 thropist." 



The reminiscence of Mr. Matthew Arnold 

 might remind our author that Mr. Arnold has 

 scarcely reconciled Dissent, however he may 

 have undermined it. In short, our author ap- 

 pears to agree with Goethe, when he cynically 

 concludes the above-quoted epigram : 



" Wer Wissenchaft und Kunst nicht besitzt 

 Der habe Religion." 



Further, our author is scarcely so successful 

 in showing the fundamental identity of art and 

 religion as of science and religion. When touch- 

 ing on the latter point he draws some instructive 

 and novel analogies between the creed of science 

 and the faith of the Old Testament : 



" I say that man believes in a God who feels 

 himself in the presence of a Power which is not 

 hime elf. and is immeasurably above himself; a 

 Power in the contemplation of which he is ab- 

 sorbed, in the knowledge of which he finds safety 

 and happiness." 



" But now, either under the name of God, or 

 under that of Nature, or under that of Science. 

 or under that of Law, the conception works 

 freshly and powerfully in a multitude of minds. 

 It is an idea, indeed, that causes much unhappi- 

 ness, much depression. Men now reason with 

 God as Job did, or feel crushed before bim as 

 Mo?es, or wrestle with him as Jacob, or blas- 

 pheme him ; they do not so easily attain the 

 Christian hope." 



" We have spoken of science as replacing 

 miracle ; prophecy it does not so much replace 

 as restore. As it. grasps human affairs with more 

 confidence, it begins to unravel the past, and with 

 the past the future. It shows the significance 

 of each new social or political phase as the He- 

 brew prophets studied to do." 



These quotations may serve to illustrate the 

 author's main contentions as to the relation of 

 science and religion. But it is more difficult to 

 explain his views as to the connection of the ar- 

 tistic and religious ideals. He points out the 

 great influence of the poet on the higher life of 



the time, reviving Mr. Arnold's " criticism of 

 life " view ; and he recognizes tne ideal tenden- 

 cies of the Antinomianism that is generally as- 

 sociated with artistic impulses. But he almost 

 invariably regards art as solely dealing with 

 beautiful objects of sight, and thus bringing it 

 into contact with the scientific observation of 

 nature. We have throughout observed not one 

 word devoted to music, yet there are thousands 

 nowadays with whom the cultus of rhythmic 

 and harmonic sounds has usurped the place of 

 almost all other worship, and a work on natural 

 religion should have taken notice of their case. 

 And on art in general, barring a few excellent 

 pages on Goethe and Wordsworth, little is said 

 that justifies the position given her alongside of 

 science and religion. That position may be de-, 

 served ; but the arguments brought forward in 

 this book do not show adequate appreciation of 

 the artistic mind. 



Apart from this lack of sympathy with the 

 orthodox schools of religious opinion, and an 

 inadequate estimate of the artistic ideal, it is 

 possible to find fault with other lines of the ar- 

 gument. There is, perhaps, a certain amount 

 of professional exaggeration in the estimate 

 formed of the historian's office. It is, to say the 

 least, paradoxical to assert, "It is not exclu- 

 sively, but only par excellence, that religion is 

 directed toward God." It is obscuring a funda- 

 mental distinction to include, as our author often 

 does, humanity in nature. The argument from 

 Mohammedanism, that there may be a religion 

 without miracles (p. 192), may be turned another 

 way, when we reflect how inevitably the earliest 

 traditions introduced miraculous events into the 

 life of the Prophet. And interesting as is the 

 attempt to widen the meaning of religion, it too 

 often results in mere paradox, and manages only 

 to evade difficulties by denying that they exist, 

 Still the aim of the author, which is to point out 

 the large amount of agreement among conflicting 

 parties, is perfectly legitimate, and permits a 

 certain exaggeration in looking only at common 

 qualities, and neglecting divergencies. 



Turning to the more pleasant and more prof- 

 itable task of pointing out the many novel ideas 

 and brilliant thoushts contained in this book, 

 one has first to notice the power of acute social 

 diagnosis that is throughout displayed. Take, 

 for instance, the following remme of the scien- 

 tific temper : 



"Instead of that painful conflict with tempta- 

 tion which moralists describe, there may be an 

 almost unbroken peace arising from the absence 

 of temptation ; instead of the gradual formation 

 of virtuous habits, there may be the gradual dis- 

 use of all habits except the habit of thought and 

 study; there may be perpetual self-absorption, 

 without what is commonly called selfishness, 

 total disregard of other people, together with an 

 unceasing labor for the human race. A life, in 

 short, like that of the vestal, ' the world forget- 

 ting, by the world forgot,' yet without any love 

 or heavenly communion." 



Or, again, take the few but weighty words 

 dealing with Nihilism ; or the account of the 



