Science in Public Affairs 



characteristics possessed in common by the reli- 

 gious and scientific community can be traced out 

 in detail. If, for instance, the scientist resorts to 

 a public library to read the journal of his favourite 

 society, he is obviously paralleling the tendency 

 of the laxer churchman to escape the monthly 

 collection for what in certain nonconformist 

 churches is called the sustentation fund. But 

 minute detail and formal aspect apart, what is it 

 that constitutes the essential similarity of type in 

 the religious and scientific group ? 



The immense multiplication of religious sects 

 in the present day, and in history, is popularly 

 accounted one of the least creditable features of 

 civilisation. The sceptics deprecate it as a bad 

 habit, like alcoholism and immorality, into which 

 the uncultivated man is prone to fall. But in itself, 

 and apart from its secondary effects, the mere pro- 

 liferation of sectionally religious bodies is simply 

 an expression of spiritual freedom. In joining this, 

 that, or the other church, in remaining within its 

 fold, or in leaving it, the individual believes him- 

 self to be actuated by non-material motives. He 

 believes that he is uninfluenced alike by the par- 

 liaments that make laws, the bureaucracies that 

 administer them, and the judges that interpret or 

 misinterpret them. He believes that his religious 

 life is unconditioned by the policeman visible at 

 the street corner, by the sovereign invisible on 

 his throne, and the soldiers that display his royal 

 uniform. In brief, the member of a religious com- 

 munity believes himself to have risen into a world 



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