RATIONALISM AND IDEA OF GOD 225 



Another cardinal point in the older systems has 

 always been its claim to possess a revelation of Truth 

 which is in some real ways complete and absolute. 



This leads us on immediately to a subject of 

 especial interest to us as rationalists — namely, the 

 relation of religion to science and to free inquiry. 

 Religious beliefe, if they are really believed with any 

 conviction, will be to a greater or less extent dominant 

 beliefs, because by their nature they concern the 

 general relationship between man and his surround- 

 ings, which must bulk large in all our lives ; 

 and it is matter of common experience with what 

 obstinacy and fanaticism they may be held. If 

 therefore a system of religious belief includes the 

 belief that it is revealed, and therefore true with 

 a more ultimate and complete truth than the truths 

 of observation or experiment, any fact or idea which 

 conflicts with any part of the system will be inevitably 

 treated not only as dangerous to the system, but as 

 actually evil : and this tendency is reinforced by the 

 craving of the average man for certainty, for intellectual 

 satisfection without undue intellectual effort. The 

 cynic who said that beliefs are generally held with 

 an intensity inversely proportional to the amount of 

 evidence which can be adduced in their support, was 

 not wholly or only cynical. 



Since, however, the progress of modern science, 

 in addition to the discovery of many wholly new 

 facts, has largely consisted in a proper investigation 



