ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



naturalism do not satisfy the moral and religious 

 nature. 



The heart is a big, strong, self-acting, muscular 

 pump, but when we lay our hand upon the heart 

 and refer our emotions, our love, our aspirations, to 

 it, we idealize it, we do not then think of its physical 

 function and character. By this act we are still de- 

 ferring to the ancient and outworn belief that in 

 this region resides the soul — the part of man that 

 loves and hates and hopes and fears. 



The brain is the temple of the mind or the vesti- 

 bule of the spiritual world, but we can explain it 

 only in terms of anatomy, physiology, and physics 

 which darken and chill our sensibilities. 



Things and movements come about through 

 natural processes, not through supernatural ones, 

 but when we state these processes in the only terms 

 in which they can be stated, the religious soul feels 

 hurt and orphaned. All our religious or theological 

 explanations of things discredit matter and the ma- 

 terial world, discredit Nature and all her processes. 

 Evolution is anti-religious; that man is of animal 

 origin is still a hard doctrine to the old-fashioned 

 theologian. Why is it not equally a hard doctrine to 

 him that we were ever babies or embryos, carried 

 about and associated with the viscera of our moth- 

 ers' bodies? We have got to exalt the natural, the 

 material, and free our minds from the illusions of the 

 old theologies before we can see the truth and 



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