THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 347 



them in the most gross way, lie accused them of having obtained from him 

 twelve thousand goats, some hundred- weight of sweetmeats, two thousand gal- 

 lons of milk, etc., under false pretences. 1 ... He then ordered all the artillery, 

 varying from three- to twelve-pounders, to he brought in front of the palace. 

 ... All the guns were then loaded to the muzzle, and down he marched to the 

 headquarters of the Nepaul deities. ... All the guns were drawn up in front 

 of the several deities, honoring the most sacred with the heaviest metal. When 

 the order to fire was given, many of the chiefs and soldiers ran away panic- 

 stricken, and others hesitated to obey the sacrilegious order ; and not until sev- 

 eral gunners had been cut down, were the guns opened. Down came the gods 

 and goddesses from their hitherto sacred positions ; and, after six hours' heavy 

 cannonading, not a vestige of the deities remained." ' 



This, which is one of the most remarkable pieces of iconoclasm on 

 record, exhibits in an extreme form the reactive antagonism usually- 

 accompanying abandonment of an old belief an antagonism that is 

 high in proportion as the previous submission has been profound. By 

 stabling their horses in cathedrals and treating the sacred places and 

 symbols with intentional insult, the Puritans displayed this feeling in 

 a marked manner ; as again did the French revolutionists by pulling 

 down sacristies and altar-tables, tearing mass-books into cartridge- 

 papers, drinking brandy out of chalices, eating mackerel off patenas, 

 making mock ecclesiastical processions, and holding drunken revels in 

 churches. Though in our day the breaking of bonds less rigid, effect- 

 ed by struggles less violent, is followed by a less excessive opposition 

 and hatred, yet habitually the throwing-off of the old form implies a 

 replacing of the previous sympathy by more or less of antipathy : per- 

 version of judgment caused by the antipathy taking the place of that 

 caused by the sympathy. What before was reverenced as wholly true 

 is now scorned as wholly false ; and what was regarded as invaluable 

 is now rejected as of no value at all. 



In some, this state of sentiment and belief continues. In others, 

 the reaction is in course of time followed by a re-reaction. To carry 

 out the Carlylean figure, the old clothes that had been outgrown and 

 were finally torn off and thrown aside with contempt, come presently 

 to be looked back upon with more calmness and with the recognition 

 that they did good service in their time nay, perhaps with the doubt 

 whether they were not thrown off too soon. This re-reaction may be 

 feeble or may be strong ; but only when it takes place in due amount 

 is there a possibility of balanced judgments either on religious ques- 

 tions or on those questions of Social Science into which the religious 

 element enters. 



Here we have to glance at the sociological errors into which the 

 anti-theological bias betrays those in whom it does not become quali- 

 fied. Thinking only of what is erroneous in the rejected creed, they 

 ignore the truth for which it stands ; contemplating only its mischiefs, 



'Five Years' Residence in Nepaul," by Captain Thomas Smith, vol. i., p. 168. 



1 (i 



