RELIGION WITHOUT DOGMA. 53 



work of a master as too sacred to require addition or improvement. 

 Ptolemy's system of the universe was so great an advance on the ex- 

 planations which preceded it, that for sixteen dreary centuries it was 

 imposed upon students of the heavens. Not until the time of Coper- 

 nicus was the theory established that the sun is the center of our sys- 

 tem, as against the notion that the sun and planets revolve around the 

 earth. Aristotle had such a wonderful grasp of mind, had so compre- 

 hensive knowledge, and was a man of so much constructive genius, 

 that admiration of him paralyzed research in science for nearly two 

 thousand years. Whewell, the historian of the inductive sciences, 

 shows how Aristotle's Hellenic love of symmetry in thought led him 

 to bridge gaps in evidence and induction by verbal propositions. His 

 works presented a fictitious completeness which imposed upon students 

 for ages. Mere comment and expansion gave place to original work 

 only when Bacon, Galileo, and others like them, taught that the way to 

 know Nature was to observe, experiment, and generalize. When the 

 methods of Aristotle and Ptolemy as observers were imitated, and 

 when their results ceased to be echoed, Avas science born again, to 

 achieve wonderful victories ; then the goose-step of the schoolmen 

 became the onward march of exploration. 



The revolt against the predominance of classical education in 

 favor of that of science is a noteworthy sign of the times. Greek 

 and Latin literatures used to be held to furnish a mental training 

 obtainable by no other studies. Now the dominion of words is pass- 

 ing away. In technical schools and colleges students are brought into 

 direct contact with the facts of Nature, and are taught how to interpret 

 these facts into principles. It is becoming more and more widely held 

 that the ancient literatures only provided a gymnasium for the mind, 

 exercise wherein can be profitably superseded and included by that 

 afforded in the tasks of the laboratory, the workshops or the botanic 

 field. Instead of repeating Greek prose and verse, the student of 

 science is taught skill in the use of his senses and reasoning powers, 

 it being intended that he shall so acquire knowledge as to be able to 

 add to knowledge. 



As in the history of science and education, so in that of the state, 

 has authority declined before the spread of the love of freedom. The 

 history of European and American civilization is the history of the 

 gradual recognition of the individual's rights, as against the claims of 

 monarchy and aristocracy, of privileged persons, families, and classes. 

 And, however imperfectly democracy may fulfill the expectations of 

 its advocates, through freedom having often come before education in 

 responsibility, one thing is clear, its idea is better than those which it 

 has displaced the idea that, as each individual man has duties to the 

 state, he has correlative rights which entitle him to a voice in appoint- 

 ing those who make the laws and execute them. 



In its advance from authority to freedom, the history of Christian 



