222 WHAT IS LIFE ? 



We now know that the Bible is the repeat in a 

 more or less perfect manner, of myths of very high 

 antiquity. 1 Great men have exposed these self-evident 

 contradictions in the Bible, so it is not necessary 

 we should continue them. We only want to state 

 sufficient to lead up to a certain definite issue. This 

 issue is, " What is Religion ? " 



knowledge of the world they inhabit, have enlarged our philosophy 

 beyond the limits which bounded that of the Church of the Fathers. 

 And all these have an influence, whether we will or no, on our deter- 

 minations of religious truth. There are found to be more things in 

 heaven and earth than were dreamt of in the patristic theology." 

 ' The Education of the World," by " The Most Reverend Father in 

 God " ! ! ! The Archbishop of Canterbury. Is it not wonderful that 

 an intelligent mind which could write the above pregnant w r ords 

 could prostitute himself to the medieval mummery which has just 

 taken place, and this in the latter part of the nineteenth century ? 



1 " All advanced and civilized communities have had their Deca- 

 logues and Sermons on the Mount, and it is impossible for any 

 dispassionate observer to read them without feeling that in substance 

 they are all identical, whether contained in the Egyptian Todtenbuch, 

 the Babylonian hymns, the Zoroastriaii Zendavesta, the sacred books 

 of Brahmanism and Buddhism, the Maxims of Confucius, the 

 Doctrines of Plato and the Stoics, or the Christian Bible." 

 "Human Origins," S. Laing, 1895, p. 132.) 



