RELATION OF ETHICS TO SOCIAL SCIENCE 671 



of Protestantism; and, at the end of this long journey, what have 

 we gained? We have gained, indeed, in breadth and in psychological 

 insight, and our knowledge of the causes that contribute to the rise 

 and fall of religious systems has been augmented ; but as to the main 

 point, as to the problem now before us, what shall be the next step in 

 religion, how far are w r e helped? Does the test of social survival avail? 

 The religious type which is largely regarded as the highest, the 

 Protestant, is, if anything, a disintegrating rather than an integrat- 

 ing force. The Protestant religion in the United States, with its 

 one hundred and forty-eight sects, divides the population in feeling 

 and ideas. Indeed, it is the belief of many that if it were not for 

 the emergence of other ideal centres of unity, such as the political 

 ideal, an advanced nation like the American could hardly cohere, 

 so manifold are the religious camps into which it has been divided 

 and subdivided. The Protestant religion, as a socially preservative 

 influence, can hardly compare with the influence of the Greek Cath- 

 olic Church in Russia, or the influence of Roman Catholicism in the 

 Middle Ages, or with that of Islam among its votaries to-day. Nor 

 does the test of complexity avail, for Protestantism, with its emphasis 

 on the individual, its simple ritual, surely cannot vie in complexity 

 with its own predecessors in the West, or with a religion like Brah- 

 manism in the East. The truth is, that the different religions do not 

 constitute a progressive series. Each of the different stages of religious 

 development, each of the great religious systems, has its own peculiar 

 excellences and defects; each is governed by some ruling aspect or ideal; 

 and if we condemn a religious system it is because the aspect of the 

 problem of man's relation to the universe, of which it is the expression, 

 because the idea which underlies it, fails to appeal to us. But as 

 to the question which is the preferable aspect and which the higher 

 idea, on what ground that religious science offers us can we possibly 

 decide? It is true that religion is not an isolated phenomenon, but an 

 element in the complexusof a whole type of civilization; and herein we 

 find an additional ground of preference? We rate Protestantism higher 

 than Buddhism because the idea of liberty appeals to us more strongly 

 than the idea of Nirvana, or the quenching of the individual. In 

 addition, we take into account the effect on human life produced 

 by quietism on the one hand, and active self-affirmation on the other; 

 and we find that in the one case there is absence of material progress 

 and of progress in scientific knowledge, and in the other case a plethora 

 of increasing comforts and extension of scientific knowledge. But what 

 justifies us in rating comfort so high, or knowledge so high; and how 

 are we to meet the contemptuous smile of the disciple of Buddha, 

 who scorns the materialism by which we are choked, and the scientific 

 knowledge that cuts off our spiritual outlook, and the self-assertion 

 that keeps us forever restless, and tells us that the taste or the 



