6i4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



have faith in the future of humanity, in the eventual evolution of a 

 verifiable and complete science of life, such a mixture of the strands 

 of religious consciousness will cause no uneasiness. For just as the ear- 

 liest scientific psychology cheerfully recognized the two sides of the 

 human mind the rational and the irrational as equally necessary, 

 equally human, so in an altered sense we may say that the religion of 

 humanity, as it springs from the human heart, must not only take cog- 

 nizance of its justifiable aspirations, but of those hopes and fears also 

 which in a strict sense of the word we might be tempted to call irra- 

 tional, as in no sense founded on reason, if not in direct antagonism 

 with it. Yet, we are not, for all that, obliged to postulate an essence 

 above and beyond human reason, as the cause of these emotions and 

 sentiments. Rather, they are the gropings of the human spirit in its 

 efforts efforts ever to be renewed and ever baffled to comprehend 

 the Unknowable. " Poor men, most admirable, most pitiable," cries 

 " A Voice from the Nile " 



"... man 



Has fear and hope and fantasy and awe 



And wistful yearnings and unsated loves 



That strain beyond the limits of his life, 



And therefore Gods and Demons, Heaven and Hell ; 



This Man, the admirable, the pitiable."' 



And therefore, we may add, recognizing the fact as fully as the ad- 

 herents of the old faith, therefore does man differ from the other ani- 

 mals. But none the less are we bound to recognize also that in this 

 special sphere, in religion, whose function it was to raise men above 

 themselves by raising their thoughts to something higher than them- 

 selves, the center of gravity, so to speak, has changed. To the ancient 

 mind, the highest truth lay in the region of idea ; to the modern mind, 

 in the world of fact. The religion of men in the middle ages was 

 their poetry, their science, their consolation for the ills of life ; it made 

 mankind better, but did not consciously aim at making the world a 

 better place to dwell in ; their eyes were turned to a resting-place 

 above, for which life on earth was at best a school of discipline. The 

 supposition upon which these beliefs rested, "that our living nature 

 will continue after death,"* we can rest upon with confidence no 

 longer it is at best but an aspiration ; and our religion is nothing if it 

 does not aim at the improvement of the world in which we live, if it 

 does not ground itself upon a basis of fact. Yet, even so, the best 

 advice is probably that of the great master of human wisdom, who, 



resolving that " we express our devout gratitude to Almighty God, the Giver of all good, 

 for the brilliant successes granted to the British arms in Egypt ; that we rejoice that our 

 forces have by their courage and devotion added to the luster and renown which British 

 valor has achieved in all quarters of the globe." The resolutions "were all carried 

 unanimously, amid enthusiastic cheering." 

 * Butler' l; " Analogy," conclusion to Part I. 



