i6 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



" He felt sure that if any one could once be brought to 

 consider his own nature ^ ... he would never recur to 

 those perilous errors of convention, but would live stead- 

 fastly, a law to himself, happy (because self-respecting and 

 trustful) in this world and the next. These principles 

 never came from pure Reason ; but rather from an 

 instinct of sonship, a religious instinct, suggesting to the 

 soul as probable far more than it can prove by argu- 

 ment." 2 



" Pure reason cannot tell him of this : its mission is 

 purgative not dietetic, negative, not constructive. A 

 scientific definition of a practical thing only removes 

 error ; it does not teach Truth." ^ 



Thus, as I have shown above, has it been and is it 

 still with Secularism. The instructive essay by Mr. F. 

 J, Gould on "The New Secularism" proves it ; in which 

 he speaks of the old Secularism of Mr. Bradlaugh's days 

 in the " seventies," as characterised by " destructive argu- 

 ments," not only against theology, but even among them- 

 selves. It was all "purgative," as Mr. Bussell says ; but 

 during the last thirty years it appears not to have offered 

 anything substantial in the constructive line. Hence 

 Mr. Gould suggests, as a beginning, to build Rationalistic 

 churches with organs and ceremonies and ritualism 

 complete ! 



' Apparently as Bradlaugh and Herbert Spencer did also. 

 2 Op. cit., p. 89. ■■' Op. cit., pp. 91, 92, 



