238 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



belief to you, and to show that, albeit much altera- 

 tion and a thorough revision of ideas is needed, the 

 term God has an important scientific connotation, 

 and further that the present stagnation of religion 

 can be remedied if, as has happened again and again 

 in biological evolution, the old forms become extinct 

 or subordinate, and a new dominant type is devel- 

 oped along quite fresh lines. 



In any case the man of science must obviously, if 

 he face the problem at all, take up a scientific atti- 

 tude of mind towards it. He cannot say that there is 

 no such thing as religion; or try to whittle it away 

 by explaining that it is something else — a compli- 

 cated fear, or a sublimated sex-instinct, or a combina- 

 tion of credulity and duplicity. A thing, if it is a 

 thing at all, is never merely something else. Nor 

 can he submit to the pretensions of those who assert 

 that it is too sacred to be touched, or that its cer- 

 tainties are greater than those of science. No — he 

 must treat it for what it is — a fact, and a very im- 

 portant fact at that, in human history: and he must 

 see whether the application of scientific method to 

 its study — in other words, its illumination by the 

 faculty of pure intellect — will help not only our 

 comprehension of religion in the past, but its actual 

 development in the future. 



He can study it in various ways. He can use the 

 method of observation and comparison, collecting 

 and collating facts until he is able to give a con- 

 nected account of the manifestations of religion and 



