CH. V.J RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT, 465 



Bcientific philosophy hold to the distinction between sin on 

 the one hand, and crime or tort on the other? Our questions 

 may readily be answered if, bearing in mind the theoretic 

 attitude of Cosmism toward Anthropomorphism, we note the 

 anthropomorphic ' theory of sin and the anthropomorphic 

 sanctions for righteousness. On the anthropomorphic hypo- 

 thesis, sin is an offence against a personal Deity, consisting 

 in the disobedient transgression of some one of his revealed 

 edicts, and calling for punishment either in the present or 

 in a future life, unless reparation be made by repentance or 

 sacrifice. Now the theory of the Cosmist is in substance 

 quite identical with this/ though expressed by means of very 

 different verbal symbols. From the scientific point of view, 

 sin is a wilful violation of a law of nature, or — to speak in 

 terms of the theory of evolution — it is a course of thought 

 or action, wilfully pursued, which tends to throw the indi- 

 vidual out of balance with his environment, and thus to 

 detract from his physical or moral completeness of life. 

 The seeking after righteousness is characteristic of the 

 modern follower of science quite as much as it was charac- 

 teristic of the mediaeval saint; save that while the latter 

 symbolized his yearning as a desire to become like his 

 highest concrete conception of human excellence ideally 

 embodied in Christ, the former no longer employs any such 

 anthropomorphic symbol, but formulates his feeling in 

 scientific phrase as the persistent desire to live rightly, or 

 in entire conformity to the requirements of nature, — as 

 Goethe expresses it, — 



"Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren, resolut zu leben." 



The* feeling is identical in the two cases, though the 



^ Saving only the last clause. For, as we shall presently see, science knows 

 of no such thing as reparation for sin. Repentance cannot ward off punish- 

 ment. And herein the Cosmic hypothesis is as far superior to the Anthropo- 

 morphic hypothesis from the ethical, as it is from the philosophical, poiut of 

 view. 



