RELIGION WITHOUT DOGMA. 59 



spring. These tendencies are advanced in their progress a step by the 

 experience of each individual life. 



Having, then, expressed our dissatisfaction with the method of theo- 

 logical authority, from its having attempted problems which as yet 

 are beyond the scope of the human intellect, and because of its erro- 

 neous notions as to the knowability of truth, let us endeavor to 

 describe the method of science which we would adopt in the whole 

 sphere of our mental activity. The scientific method is nothing very 

 new or unfamiliar ; it is simply ordinary thinking, corrected by the 

 canons of a more exact and cautious procedure. It is organized, com- 

 mon sense coming into contact with fact, and carefully sifting the 

 evidence derived from fact. Business men employ it in importing or 

 manufacturing their wares, in estimating the demands of markets, and 

 ascertaining the standing of their employes and customers. Physi- 

 cians act according to it in diagnosing their cases, prescribing treat- 

 ment, or operating in surgery. Lawyers employ it in supporting their 

 pleas and arguments ; and judges use it in rendering their decisions 

 within the limits of the written law and of their precedents. The sci- 

 entific method ignores no faculty of man or fact in Nature ; it recog- 

 nizes to the full our emotions, affections, and sentiments, but subordi- 

 nates all these to the intellect, whose dictum alone is given command 

 over the educated will. Authority relies on inspiration, revelation, the 

 miraculous, and the supernatural ; science relies on brain, on experi- 

 ence, the mastery of facts by accurate and patient thought. The one 

 receives or imagines it receives, the other acquires and has no opinion 

 not subject to revision as new evidence comes in. It entertains no 

 beliefs beyond evidence, and seeks none. It knows nothing of infal- 

 lible guides without or within, nothing of authorities which may not 

 be doubted and which submit no proof of their assertions. Science 

 endeavors to substitute convictions for mere assent ; and, instead of 

 mechanical adhesion, would give to genuine authority the intelligent 

 concurrence earned by the labor of the individual mind. It is not 

 because science has won its chief victories in the physical world, where 

 the comparative simplicity of its problems has invited attack, that 

 we should therefore have an imperfect idea of its scope. Its scope 

 includes the whole range of human thought and feeling. Science 

 is not limited to fields where clocks and micrometers may be used to 

 measure, or logarithmic tables be employed to compute ; it recognizes 

 human emotions, sentiments, and will. To these it would direct study, 

 no less than to the areas where exact results are attainable. 



Applying, then, the method of science to an examination of the- 

 ology, it appears to consist in an attempt at explaining the facts of 

 Nature, and the sanctions of duty, in distant ages of scant knowledge. 

 Its scriptural revelations come down to us through centuries of untrust- 

 worthy custodians, and when they reach us at last they are not reve- 

 lations to us, but hearsay about revelations, and must be judged by the 



