EVOLUTION AND RELIGION 



of the Christian Church because of the superstition and 

 idolatry with which the masses are prone to personify 

 God, and in the next breath, with childish credulity, 

 accepts on faith the superstition and idolatry of 

 science which portray the form and qualities of atoms 

 and aethers, and narrates the history of an infinite uni- 

 verse from its inception to modern times. Spencer and 

 Fiske speak reverently of the Absolute Unknown and 

 of religion, but they are equally emphatic that all re- 

 ligions, except the submission to natural law, are de- 

 graded by their errors; but they do not dwell on the 

 errors and absurdities of science. Thus, the impres- 

 sion one gets is that science seeks the truth; religion 

 cultivates deception. Men of science are critical, while 

 men of religion are gullible. The one is judged under 

 its best aspects and the other by its worst. Can we 

 truthfully say that the masses have degraded religion 

 more than they have science*? What is the attitude 

 towards medicine, or any of the laws of nature, but 

 the same superstition and idolatry as towards reli- 

 gion? 



If we are to compare science and religion we must 

 consider the best of each and decide whether rational 

 or moral aspirations and practice have been the more 

 efficacious in promoting civilization. I cannot see that 

 the scientific "de-anthropomorphization of God" into 

 the Absolute Unknowable which institutes natural 

 law is any more exact than, or in fact different from, 

 the idea of God as the essence of spirit and truth 



C 351 1 



