THE NATURAL VERSUS THE SUPERNATURAL. 7 



have to suffer the pangs of mortality just the same, and the conse- 

 quences of sin just the same. When our theologians say that " Christ 

 suffered for our sins, and that, because he suffered, our sins are for- 

 given," they make a statement that can not be rationally conceived ; 

 they use a language not comprehensible by human sense the language 

 of mysticism. 



When we regard sin disinterestedly and in the light of our real 

 knowledge, we find it but a relative term. It is not a positive thing 

 as electricity is, but the absence of a thing, as cold is the absence of 

 heat, or as darkness is the absence of light. It is the imperfection of 

 human nature when tried by its highest possibilities. The theological 

 conception of sin as imputed guilt has no more place in rational knowl- 

 edge than sorcery has. The deeper our insight into the method of 

 Nature, or the more we are impressed with the order and consistency 

 of the world, the more incredible the popular Christianity seems to us. 

 To the man of science the old theology is like the traditional concep- 

 tion of angels men with both wings and arms. 



This conception breaks with the structural plan of all vertebrates, 

 the same as theology does with the law of cause and effect. Human 

 beings, with wings in place of arms, might be contrary to the fact ; 

 but such a conception does not violate the homologies of Nature, but 

 beings with both wings and arms have no counterpart in the world. 

 They are not merely contrary to experience, they are contrary to the 

 fundamental principle of structure that runs through the animal king- 

 dom. But when these armed and winged beings were first conceived 

 of, this fact was not known as it is now, and the tm-natural element 

 in Christianity could not have been appreciated in past ages as it is 

 to-day. 



The doctrinal part of the popular Christianity, its supernaturalism, 

 is an inheritance from the past as much as witchcraft or magic is. But 

 it did not break with human knowledge then ; it was in strict keeping 

 with the elements of the marvelous, and the exceptional of which hu- 

 man knowledge was so largely made up. There was no science in those 

 days, no conception of the course of human or natural events as the 

 result of immutable law. The personal point of view prevailed in 

 everything. Everything revolved about man ; superhuman beings 

 took sides for or against him. Indeed, so far as science or a rational 

 conception of things is concerned, the fathers of the Church, and the 

 framers of our popular theology, were mere children. Considerations 

 were all-powerful with them, which, to-day, would not have a feather's 

 weight with a man of ordinary intelligence. Children readily, even 

 eagerly, believe almost any impossible thing you may tell them about 

 Nature. As yet they have no insight into the course of Nature, or of 

 the law of cause and effect, no fund of experience to serve as a touch- 

 stone to the false or impossible. The same was true of the fathers, 

 and of the races that witnessed the advent of Christianity great, in. 



