488 EDUCATION 



dated is low. This, of course, does not necessarily imply that the 

 doctrines of all religions are untrue and degrading. If the religion 

 is true, it may imply merely that many of the doctrines taught by 

 it have, through the advance of science, been established on 

 verifiable evidence, and, therefore, have passed from the category 

 of things believed to be true into that of things proved to 

 be true into that category which it is the hope of all religious 

 people that their articles of faith will be found at the awakening 

 after death. They then become a part, not of * religious ' truth, but 

 of that ordinary secular knowledge which, when systematized, is 

 termed science. For their acceptance an "act of faith" is no 

 longer needed. Thus, if all the doctrines of Mohammedanism 

 were verified, they would be distributed amongst the various 

 sciences, and, since no indisputably verified fact is ever regarded 

 as a religious truth, the religion, as such, would cease to exist. 

 It would be rejected, not by the irreligious, but only by the 

 ignorant, who, as a rule, would be prejudiced adherents of some 

 other faith. Probably, too, the emotional tone of true believers 

 would undergo change. Verified truth is not regarded with 

 that peculiar devotion to which the adherents of religions are 

 trained. There is no need for it. Thus, in science heated con- 

 troversies occur only about matters that are doubtful. No one 

 was ever fanatical about a mathematical demonstration. It follows, 

 that as verified truth accumulates, the area covered and emotionally 

 coloured by religion tends to shrink. For example, our ancestors 

 held as religious truth an immense body of belief concerning the 

 visible universe, but nobody claims any part of our present verified 

 knowledge as an item of faith, and, if any of our fellows now held 

 that the earth is flat, we should think them foolish, not wicked. 

 But " when we examine the general culture of the savage we find 

 that it is entirely religious. The savage not only has religion, but 

 apparently has nothing else." l The heavens and the earth, every 

 echo, rainbow, and lightning ^flash, every disease and accident, even 

 the things he eats, and the rocks and trees he dwells under, are 

 interpreted by him in religious terms. Compare the area covered 

 by his religious convictions with the shrunken area covered by the 

 modern Christianity of the more enlightened peoples. In one 

 sense, then, science is always antagonistic to religion. Whatever 

 is true it tends to render non-religious ; whatever is false it tends 

 to overthrow ; and invariably it tends to alter the emotional tone, 



1 The Rev. A. E. Crawley, " The Origin and Function of Religion," Sociological 

 Papers, vol. iii. p. 245, Macmillan & Co., 1907. 



