354 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fugitive product which was in course of ever-changing manifestation 

 before Humanity was, and will continue through other manifestations 

 when Humanity has ceased to be. 



To recognitions of this order the anti-theological bias is a hindrance. 

 Ignoring the truth for which religions stand, it undervalues religious 

 institutions in the past, thinks they are needless in the present, and 

 expects they will leave no representatives in the future. Hence many 

 errors in sociological reasonings. 



To the various other forms of bias, then, against which we must 

 guard in studying the Social Science, has to be added the bias, per- 

 haps as powerful and perverting as any, which religious beliefs and 

 sentiments produce. This, both generally under the form of theologi- 

 cal bigotry, and specially under the form of sectarian bigotry, affects 

 the judgments about public affairs ; and reactions against it give the 

 judgment an opposite warp. 



The theological bias, under its general form, tending to maintain a 

 dominance of the subordination-element of religion over its ethical ele- 

 ment tending, therefore, to measure actions by their formal congruity 

 with a creed rather than by their intrinsic congruity with human wel- 

 fare is unfavorable to that estimation of worth in social arrangements 

 which is made by tracing out results. And, while the general theo- 

 logical bias brings into Sociology an element of distortion, by using a 

 kind of measure foreign to the science properly so called, the special 

 theological bias brings in further distortions, arising from the special 

 measures of this kind which it uses. Institutions, old and new, home 

 and foreign, are considered as congruous or incongruous with a par- 

 ticular set of dogmas, and liked or disliked accordingly : the obvious 

 result being that, since the sets of dogmas differ in all times and 

 places, the sociological judgments affected by them must inevitably be 

 wrong in all cases but one, and probably in all cases. 



On the other hand, the reactive bias distorts conceptions of socio- 

 logical phenomena by undervaluing religious systems. It generates 

 an unwillingness to see that a religious system is a normal and essen- 

 tial factor in every evolving society ; that the specialties of it have 

 certain fitnesses to the social conditions ; and that, while its forms are 

 temporary, its substance is permanent. In so far as the anti-theologi- 

 cal bias causes an ignoring of these truths, or an inadequate apprecia- 

 tion of them, it causes misinterpretations. 



To maintain the required equilibrium, amid the conflicting sympa- 

 thies and antipathies which contemplation of religious beliefs inevita- 

 bly generates, is difficult. In presence of the theological thaw going 

 on so fast on all sides, there is on the part of many a fear, and on the 

 part of some a hope, that nothing will remain. But the hopes and the 

 fears are alike groundless ; and must be dissipated before balanced 

 judgments in Social Science can be formed. Like the transformations 



