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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is a clear and certain truth of revela- 

 tion? But how many of us who do 

 not hold that have ever said a word to 

 tell men that we thought they might 

 be Christians, and yet keep a hope for 

 the souls of all God's children ? " 



Dr. Brooks remarks still further: 

 " There must be no lines of orthodoxy 

 inside the lines of truth. Men find that 

 you are playing with them and will not 

 believe you even when you come in ear- 

 nest. I know what may be said in an- 

 swer. I know the old talk about hold- 

 ing the outworks as long as we can, and 

 then retreating to the citadel, and per- 

 haps there has hardly been a more mis- 

 chievous metaphor than this. It is the 

 mere illusion of a metaphor. The min- 

 ister who tries to make people believe 

 that which he questions, in order to 

 keep them from questioning that which 

 he believes, knows very little about the 

 certain workings of the human heart, 

 and has no real faith in truth itself. I 

 think that a great many teachers and 

 parents now are just in this condition. 

 They remember that they started with 

 a great deal more belief than they have 

 now. They have lost much, and still 

 have much to live by. They think that 

 their children, too, must start believing 

 so much that they can afford to lose a 

 great deal and still have something left, 

 and so they teach these children what 

 they have themselves long ceased to 

 believe. It is a most dangerous experi- 

 ment." 



We have quoted these frank and 

 impressive passages because they will 

 have weight as coming from a distin- 

 guished religious teacher. They reveal 

 no secret, and state nothing that ob- 

 serving persons did not know before ; 

 but they bring out clearly the degree 

 to which religious dogmas are already 

 discredited and secretly abandoned, and 

 they painfully illustrate the insincerity 

 and duplicity that have resulted. 



But what we have here to note is 

 simply the acknowledgment of the ex- 

 tent to which theology is losing its hold 

 upon the general mind, and untenable 



articles of religious faith are being aban- 

 doned. It is this crumbling theological 

 system that has been hitherto offered 

 us as the foundation of morals. Ee- 

 ligion and morality, as we have said, 

 are held to be bound up in a common 

 fate, and to the great majority of peo- 

 ple religion means orthodox theology. 

 These will therefore naturally think 

 that, when their articles of faith are dis- 

 credited, morality must be discredited 

 also. We are thus forced by the criti- 

 cal exigencies of thought to meet the 

 question, Is morality to fall with the 

 decaying authority of supernaturalism, 

 or does it really rest upon another and 

 more immutable foundation ? In fact, 

 the broad issue is, Does morality belong 

 to the domain of theology or to the do- 

 main of science, and is it to be treated 

 by theological methods or by the meth- 

 ods of science ? Answers to these ques- 

 tions are now imperatively demanded. 

 It may be objected that this is an 

 empty requirement, as we already have a 

 distinctly recognized ethical science cul- 

 tivated by rational methods the utilita- 

 rian system, based upon experience, and 

 rejecting all theological implications. It 

 is true that there is a strong tendency 

 of thought in this direction, but it is 

 neither the prevailing mode of viewing 

 the subject, nor does it make any claim 

 to be based upon the results of modern 

 science. Mr. Sidgwick's recent book, 

 "Methods in Ethics," in which he un- 

 dertakes to examine and criticise the 

 grounds of ethical systems, does not deal 

 with the relations of modern science to 

 the subject, and in this respect it was 

 disappointing to many. Those familiar 

 with the drifts of recent inquiry per- 

 ceive that the course it has taken and 

 the results it has attained must pro- 

 foundly affect the philosophy of morals, 

 if indeed they do not give us a "New 

 Ethics"; but Mr. Sidgwick seems but 

 little more conscious of any such move- 

 ment than were Bentham and Mill. He 

 is not of course to be blamed, as he 

 deals with past systems, but his work 

 . is proof that no close relation between 



