160 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



good, is one thing ; but, formulated into a system of theology and as- 

 suming to rest upon exact demonstration, is quite another. As such 

 it is exposed to the terrible question, Is it true ? In other words, it 

 comes within the range of science, and must stand its fire. When 

 miracles are brought forward as an evidence of the truth of Christian- 

 ity, the natural philosopher is bound to ask, Do miracles take place ? 



If our life were alone made up of reason or of exact knowledge, sci- 

 ence would be all in all to us. So far as it is made up of these things, 

 science must be our guide. But probably four fifths of life is quite 

 outside of the sphere of science ; four fifths of life is sentiment. The 

 great ages of the world have been ages of sentiment ; the great litera- 

 tures are the embodiments of sentiment. Patriotism is a sentiment ; 

 love, benevolence, admiration, worship, are all sentiments. 



Man is a creature of emotions, of attractions, and intuitions, as well 

 as of reason and calculation. Science can not deepen your love of 

 country, or of home and family, or of honor or purity, or enhance your 

 enjoyment of a great poem or work of art, or of an heroic act, or of the 

 beauty of Nature, or quicken your religious impulses. To know is less 

 than to love ; to know the reason of things is less than to be quick to 

 the call of duty. Unless we approach the Bible, or any of the sacred 

 books of antiquity, or the great poems, or Nature itself — a bird, a flower, 

 a tree — in other than the scientific spirit, the spirit whose aim is to 

 express all values in the terms of the reason or the understanding, we 

 shall miss the greatest good they hold for us. We are not to approach 

 them in a spirit hostile to science, but with a willingness to accept what 

 science can give, but knowing full well that there is a joy in things and 

 an insight into them which science can never give. There is proba- 

 bly nothing in the Sermon on the Mount that appeals to our scientific 

 faculties, yet there are things here by reason of which the world is 

 vastly the gainer. Indeed, nearly all the recorded utterances of Christ 

 rise into regions where science can not follow. " Take no thought of 

 the body." "He that would save his life shall lose it." "Except ye 

 become as little children, ye can not enter the kingdom of heaven," 

 etc. These things are in almost flat contradiction of the precepts of 

 science. 



It may be noted that Christ turned away from or rebuked the more 

 exact, skeptical mind that asked for a sign, that wanted proof of every- 

 thing, and that his appeal was to the more simple, credulous, and en- 

 thusiastic. He chose his disciples from among this class, men of faith 

 and emotion, not too much given 1<> ivasoning about things. In keep- 

 ing with this course of action, nearly all his teachings were by parables. 

 In fact, Christ was the highest type of the mystical, parable-loving, 

 Oriental mind, as distinguished from the exact, science-loving, Occi- 

 dental mind. 



Let us not make the mistake of supposing that all truth is scientific 

 truth, or that only those things are true and valuable which are capable 



