314 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



Haeckel's appeal to the Apocryphal Gospels for evi- 

 dence must be a somewhat desperate resort ! 



He goes on to say : " The ethical craving of our 

 emotion is satisfied by Monism, no less than the logical 

 demand for causality on the part of Reason "} 



The ethical craving may be perhaps satisfied in highly 

 intellectual individuals ; but neither Haeckel nor English 

 Rationalists can bring forward any proof that it is so 

 among the masses of men and women. If the preach- 

 ing of Morality has been found to fail, Monism will 

 certainly not succeed. As with Rationalism, there is the 

 want of Motive Power ; which, as we have seen, is felt so 

 keenly by Rationalistic writers. 



" We do not seek a mighty revolution but a rational 

 reformation of our religious life. And just as 2000 years 

 ago, the classic poetry of the ancient Greeks incarnated 

 their ideals of virtue in divine shapes, so may we, too, 

 lend the character of noble goddesses to our three 

 rational ideals. We must inquire into the features of the 

 three goddesses of the Monist — Truth, Beauty and 

 Virtue ; and we must study their relation to the three 

 corresponding ideals of Christianity which they are to 

 replace." ^ 



The fallacy underlying all this is that the average 

 man cannot worship an ideal or an abstraction. He can 

 feel no emotion for them any more than for Comte's grand 

 etre ; or than one can for gravitation. Religion cannot 

 stand upon any other basis than reverence for a Con- 

 scious Being. 



But Haeckel rejects the only Being who has and can 

 excite enthusiastic reverence. 



" We must reject what is called " Revelation," the 



^ Op. cit., p. 340. 2 Qp cit., p. 344. 



