3i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



dogma " — it must be admitted that the religious have grounds to fear 

 that implacable war is to be waged against them. 



Those who stand on the heights of genuine faith cannot be dis- 

 turbed by such misguided attacks. Being up in the mountain of 

 vision with the Lawgiver, they take no note of those at the base, who 

 make golden calves for gods. But we are not all as secure in our faith 

 as the prophet, who, according to the legend, talked with God, while 

 none of us are without some religiosity. Where faith is only an opin- 

 ion, it is not unmixed with doubt ; and where there is doubt there is 

 also fear ; and anger and fanaticism are only doubt and fear applied. 

 As the poet tells us : 



" There is no philosopher but sees 

 That rage and fear are one disease." 



Our popular theologians, then, whose notion of faith is opinion, 

 and their cherished doctrines only collections and conglomerations of 

 opinions, may well be excused for the alarm they exhibit at the as- 

 sumptions of the new lights who boast themselves the disciples of 

 reason alone, and the possessors of a positive philosophy, definite, 

 clear, and certain. 



Now, who would imagine, after all this mustering of forces, that 

 there is not a shadow of foundation for the conflict which is so fierce- 

 ly waged ? 



If we liken the half-armed advocates of religion, in their hetero- 

 geneous harness, to the gallant knight of La Mancha running a tilt 

 with the windmills, we are not the less reminded of him when we 

 witness the triumph of the new philosophers at the overthrow of the 

 " dogma of special creations." Here, indeed, we see exemplified, also, 

 mutatis rtxutandis^ that other ^ploit when the famous representative 

 of chivalry swooped down upon the frightened barber and captured 

 his pewter basin for Mambrino's helmet. In attacking and carrying 

 off this " dogma of special creations," they have made war upon a 

 figment of their own brains, or, at most, upon the unphilosophical, 

 and therefore unscientific and irreligious fictions of gentlemen of 

 their own school. Where faith is wanting, superstition and credulity 

 abound. Strange ! strange ! I repeat. There is no such doctrine as 

 that of " special creations," such as they set out in their travesty 

 under that head, contended for as a dogma by any school of religion, 

 pagan, Jew, or Christian. 



The anthropomorphic legends and poems of infant races, neces- 

 sarily anthropomorphic because poetry, which is always simple, sen- 

 suous, passionate, are not formal enunciations of rational dogma. At 

 most they contain only the philosophy of the religion (enveloped, and 

 therefore concealed as well as revealed), under sensuous — that is, 

 poetic — images. 



^ The necessary changes being made. 



