CHAP. XIII.] CONSEQUENCES, 413 



man, body and soul, and the latter in its entirety ; emotion 

 and will, as well as sense and intellect. No one can deny 

 that religious dogmas have often a powerful effect for good 

 or ill in stimulating the emotions and the will. No one, 

 therefore, can deny that education without religious dogmas 

 is necessarily defective and imperfect, though each may have 

 his view as to what those dogmas should be. 



As regards the intellect itself, no education can be regarded 

 as satisfactory which does not tend to stimulate its Education 

 highest powers. But education mainly carried on i^the^I 

 by physical science, tends to an undue preponderance est P wers - 

 of the senses, that is to say, of the lowest faculties of the 

 soul. The highest intellectual activity philosophical science 

 cannot, of course, be directly taught in poor schools. 

 Nevertheless, it is difficult to see why the highest results of 

 philosophical science should not be imparted as well as the 

 results of other sciences, e.g., astronomy. No one would 

 deprecate the imparting to poor children rational conceptions 

 of the starry heavens, on the ground that they cannot be 

 taught to examine and calculate for themselves, so as to 

 have an independent knowledge of astronomical laws and 

 phenomena. Now religion brings down to the popular appre 

 hension, and embodies the highest results of philosophy. 

 Those, therefore, who would exclude it from our schools 

 would deprive the masses of such share as is open to them of 

 the highest truth. 



A parallel folly would be to insist on each man working 

 out for himself his own astronomy. As religion, however, 

 has infinitely more to do with practical life than has astro 

 nomy, it is plain that to exclude it is an infinitely more 

 momentous matter. 



Thus the movement in favour of education in the abstract 

 most admirable tends in the concrete to be perverted, with 

 calamitous effect, through misapprehension of the true mean 

 ing of the word ; and in this way aspirations worthy of all 

 praise, and a zeal which cannot be too much commended, 

 run the risk of producing effects the very opposite to those 



