SCIENCE AND THE BISHOPS. 



359 



ter, nor does microscopic study of the infinitely little always produce 

 humility. We have our full share of original sin ; need, greed, and 

 vainglory beset us as they do other mortals ; and our progress is, for 

 the most part, like that of a tacking ship, the resultant of opposite di- 

 vergencies from the straight path. But, for all that, there is one moral 

 benefit which the pursuit of science unquestionably bestows. It keeps 

 the estimate of the value of evidence up to the proper mark ; and we 

 are constantly receiving lessons, and sometimes very sharp ones, on the 

 nature of proof. Men of science will always act up to their standard 

 of veracity, when mankind in gereral leave off sinning ; but that 

 standard appears to me to be higher among them than in any other 

 class of the community. 



I do not know any body of scientific men who could be got to 

 listen without the strongest expressions of disgusted repudiation to 

 the exposition of a pretended scientific discovery, which had no better 

 evidence to show for itself than the story of the devils entering a herd 

 of swine, or of the fig-tree that was blasted for bearing no figs when 

 *' it was not the season of figs." Whether such events are possible or 

 impossible, no man can say ; but scientific ethics can and does declare 

 that the profession of belief in them, on the evidence of documents of 

 unknown date and of unknown authorship, is immoral. Theological 

 apologists who insist that morality will vanish if their dogmas are ex- 

 ploded, would do well to consider the fact that, in the matter of intel- 

 lectual veracity, science is already a long way ahead of the churches ; 

 and that, in this particular, it is exerting an educational influence on 

 mankind of which the churches have shown themselves utterly in- 

 capable. 



Undoubtedly that varying compound of some of the best and some 

 of the worst elements of Paganism and Judaism, molded in practice 

 by the innate character of certain people of the Western world, which 

 since the second century has assumed to itself the title of orthodox 

 Christianity, "rests on miracles," and falls to the ground, not "if mira- 

 cles be impossible," but if those to which it is committed prove them- 

 selves unable to fulfill the conditions of honest belief. 



That this Christianity is doomed to fall is, to my mind, beyond a 

 doubt ; but its fall will be neither sudden nor speedy. The Church, 

 with all the aid lent it by the secular arm, took many centuries to ex- 

 tirpate the open practice of pagan idolatry -within its own fold ; and 

 those who have traveled in Southern Europe will be aware that it has 

 not extirpated the essence of such idolatry even yet. Mutato nomine^ 

 it is probable that there is as much sheer fetichism among the Roman 

 populace now as there was eighteen hundred years ago ; and if Marcus 

 Antoninus could descend from his horse and ascend the steps of the 

 Ara Cceli church about Twelfth Day, the only thing that need strike 

 him would be the extremely contemptible character of the modern 

 idols as works of art. 



