METHODS OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING 303 



incapacity to revise erroneous beliefs and opinions by the 

 light of fresh and perhaps conclusive evidence. A man can 

 seldom be made stupid without being made brutal also. 

 When masses of men are stupid they are invariably brutal. 

 On the other hand, if I teach my child that the world is of 

 this or that shape, giving data and conclusions in such a way 

 as to leave his mind capable of future acquisition and 

 thought, I shall have greatly enhanced the intellectual 

 value of the truth or greatly minimized the evil of the false- 

 hood. His belief, true or false, will no longer be a supersti- 

 tion, a prejudice, but an intelligent conviction, capable of 

 revision, and worthy of the wonderful human intellect. He 

 will not only have acquired knowledge, but also that without 

 which knowledge is useless, the power of drawing rational 

 inferences, from data which he verifies habitually. 



480. The question whether the doctrines of any religion 



are true or false lies outside the scope of our discussion. We 



are endeavouring merely to ascertain the origin of racial 



differences. The method by which any religion is taught, of 



necessity a human invention, lies within its scope. Judged 



from the intellectual standpoint, it may be a good or bad 



method. By means of it are produced in a great measure 



those mental uniformities which the adherents of any given 



religion display when compared with another, and those 



mental divergencies which they display when compared with 



the adherents of other religions mental uniformities and 



divergencies which are commonly supposed to be innate, but 



which in fact are acquired. If a religion be taught in such 



a way as to leave the minds of its adherents ductile to fresh 



experience, then that religion, however false, will be, at any 



rate, no permanent instrument of human degradation. Its 



false doctrine will presently be discovered and repudiated. 



Its true doctrine will not any the more be denied because 



held by an intelligent race ; and the advance of knowledge, 



possible under such conditions, may ultimately confer on them 



the high distinction of removal from the category of things 



believed to be true to the category of things known to be true. 



A religion taught in this way will be associated with a 



changeful and progressive civilization in which many great 



men arise, for supreme intellect will have scope and ordinary 



minds will be receptive. If, on the other hand, a religion be 



so taught that its doctrines are held as mere superstitions, 



then, whether true or false, it will become an instrument, 



the most potent conceivable, of human degradation. It will 



surround and limit the minds of its adherents by an 



