3o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



izing hastily, there may be seen the born Philistine, who does not 

 know, and has never heard, what generalizing is, who becomes uncom- 

 fortable when he hears a principle enunciated, as if he had been ad- 

 dressed by a foreigner in some language unknown to him, and whose 

 homely talk never willingly travels beyond what time the train starts, 

 and whether it happened on Monday or on Tuesday. Lastly, by the 

 side of the brilliant Utopian, who overlooks the greatness of the ne- 

 cessity with which he has to contend, there is the Utopian without 

 brilliancy, the enrage^ the mere restless disturber. 



As atheism is but another name for feebleness, so the universal 

 characteristic of theology if we put aside for the present the rare 

 belief in an utterly hostile or thwarting Deity is energy. He who 

 has a faith, we know well, is twice himself. The world, the conven- 

 tional or temporary order of things, goes down before the weapons 

 of faith, before the energy of those who have a glimpse, or only tliink 

 they have a glimpse, of the eternal or normal order of things. And 

 this vigor of theism does not much depend on the nature of the God 

 in whom the theist believes. Just as atheism does not consist in a 

 bad theory of the universe, but in the want of any theory, so theism 

 consists not in possessing a meritorious or true or consoling theoi-y, 

 but simply in possessing a theory of the universe. He who has such 

 a theory acts with confidence and decision, he who has no such the- 

 ory is paralyzed. One of the rudest of all theories of the universe is 

 that propounded by Mohammed, yet it raised ujd a feeble and dis- 

 persed nation to vigor, union, and empire. Calvinism presents as- 

 suredly a view of the universe which is not in any way consoling, 

 yet this creed too gave vigor and heroism. The creed of the earliest 

 Romans rested upon no basis which could for a moment pass for philo- 

 sophical, yet while it was believed it gave order to the state, sanction 

 to morality, victory to the armies. Whatever kind of theology be in 

 question, so long as it is truly believed, the only danger is of its in- 

 spiring too much energy of its absorbing its votaries too much, and 

 driving them into extreme courses. 



And so if the Nature recognized by Science be not benevolent, and 

 have provided no future life for men, it does not follow that her vota- 

 ries are not theologians, and it is quite clear that their theology gives 

 them energy. Many theologies have had no future life ; indeed, it is 

 well known that our own, in its earlier Judaic form, laid no stress 

 upon any future life. And it is not the benevolence of his Deity 

 which gives so much energy and confidence to the convinced theist ; 

 it is rather the assurance that he has the secret of propitiating his 

 Deity. It was not because Jupiter and Mars were benevolent beings 

 that the Roman went out to battle confiding in their protection. It 

 was because all sacrifices had been performed which the pontifis or 

 the Sibylline books prescribed. Just of the same kind is the theistic 

 vigor which we see in modern science. Science also has its jjrocuratio 



