June 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOVS^LEDGE ♦ 



171 



the folse token of dishonour, and the latter with Falcon- 

 bridge's abuse of Commodity. 



In particular the latter comparison should be carefully 

 made Ijy all who feel tempted to cut the Gordiau knot of the 

 Shakespeare marvel by supposing that it was another than 

 Shakespeare who wrote the plays. " Thou ceaseless lackey 

 to eternity, thou foul abettor, thou notorious bawd, thou 

 ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief," says Lucrece, in her 

 anguish ; but at the last she sorrowfully says, •■ In vain I 

 rail at opportunity." In like manner, Falconbridgc, in his 

 bitter disgust at the mad composition made by the kings, 

 speaks of " This Commodity, the bias of the world, that 

 daily break-vow, that bawd, that broker, that all-changing 

 word" — then at the last asks, angrily, "Why rail I on 

 this Commodity 1 " If two men wi-ote these tiradas, then 

 we may well believe that the " Inferno " and the " Paradise " 

 came from diverse hands. 



SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 



K the June, 1886, number of Knowledge appeared 

 an article called " Science and Polities," in which 

 we touched on the absurd idea that men of 

 .science, as such, are less qualified to form just 

 opinions on political questions than farmers, 

 tradesmen, manufacturers, brewers, or bankers, 

 whether in their simple condition as such or 

 after the process of election to our great parleying house. 

 We pointed out that while the man of science is altogether 

 out of his element, and indeed is acting altogether out of 

 character, when he expresses opinions about political ques- 

 tions which he has not studied, he is not more out of his 

 element in so doing than the farmer, banker, or merchant 

 who does likewise, even though the farmer, banker, or 

 merchant may have intensified such original ignorance of 

 political matters by many years' practice in parliamentary 

 procedure. And we showed further that the training of the 

 student of science of these times, while it tends, on the one 

 hand, to make him carefully avoid any expression of opinions 

 about matters which he has not studied (caution which the 

 average merchant, farmer, brewer, or banker does not in- 

 vai-iably display), tends also, on the other hand, to make 

 him examine carefully, and even anxiousl}-, into the hidden 

 cau.ses of things, where persons not so trained are content to 

 note sequence only, inferring causation unhesitatingly where 

 there may not be even any connection whatever. The real 

 difference between students of science and others in this 

 matter, and that which has led to the mist;iken idea that 

 they think less about political and social problems than 

 others, lies in the circumstance that they less frequently 

 express opinions on such matters. The rest of the com- 

 munity, without thinking more — nay, probably thinking 

 less — are seldom troubled bj- any doubts as to the justice of 

 their views, and so speak openly and freely. People are 

 accustomed to hear them thus speak at public gatherings, 

 while the more thoughtful, or those who are more fully con- 

 scious of the difficulties of the problems dealt with, remain 

 silent. But this should not lead to the conclusion that the 

 loudest-voiced are the wisest or the best informed, or there- 

 fore the fittest to express an opinion (even though such 

 opinion may be merely negative). On the contrary, it has 

 been a misfortune to our own country, and is recognised as 

 a still deeper trouble among our kinsfolk in America, that 

 the people who undertake most confidently to deal with 

 political matters, and who are least cautious in considering 

 doubts and ditficulties, are those least fitted for the task of 

 guiding or controlhng political events. Insomuch that while 



in England the term '• politician " has become one of doubt- 

 ful respectability, in America it is not a doubtful term at 

 all, but expresses an unpleasant cross between charlatan 

 and rogue. 



A similar mistake afl'ects the ideas most men form as to 

 the fitness of the student of science to express ojjinions about 

 religion. The mistake may, indeed, be not quite so obvious. 

 For it depends on a notion very commonly entertained, and 

 encouraged by the cla.ss to which it relates, that there is a 

 certain set of men expressly trained for religious study, and 

 especially fit, because of certain imagined, qualities, to form 

 just opinions on religious matters. 



Let us at the outset not* that we are not here considering 

 what has been called — absurdly enough — the conflict between 

 religion and science. There is no such conflict, and there 

 never has been. " The real contest," as Fiske well remarks 

 (in an essay on Draper's overvalued work on the imagined 

 conflict), "is between one phase cf science and another; 

 between the more crude knowledge of yesterday and the less 

 crude knowledge of to-day. The contest, indeed," as he 

 proceeds to say, " is simply, as presented in history, the 

 measure of the ditficulty which men find in exchanging old 

 views for new ones. All along, the practical question has 

 been whether we should passively acquiesce in the crude 

 generalisations of our ancestors or venture to revise them. 

 But as for the religious sentiment, the perennial struggle 

 in which it has been engaged has not been with scientific 

 inquiry, but with the selfish propensities whose tendency is 

 to make men lead the lives of brutes. Viewed in this light, 

 religion is not only something that mankind is never likely 

 to get rid of, but it is incomparably the most noble as well as 

 the most useful attribute of humauitj'." 



It is not, however, with this imagined conflict of science 

 w-ith religion, but w-ith the fitness of the student of science 

 to form and formulate opinions about religion, that we are 

 here concerned. Xor are we opposing the truism sagely 

 enunciated by George Eliot, among others, that the man of 

 science is no worthier of a hearing than his fellows when 

 he .speaks of that which he has not specially studied. 

 Cela va sans dire. The mistake to which we direct our 

 argument is the commonly-adopted notion that men of 

 science, as such, have not as good opportunities as other 

 men, and are less disposed than most men, to examine and 

 inquire into religious questions. 



Men who are neither scientific nor cleiical (to include in' 

 this word the priests and ministers of all orders in all 

 religions) are for the most part content to take their re- 

 ligious ideas from the ministers of that particular religious 

 body in which they happen to find themselves. To such 

 men it naturally appears a mistake, and indeed an emphatic 

 nuisance, for men not clerical in the wide sense just indicated, 

 to form or express any opinions at all about religious 

 matters. For, such expressions of opinion disturb their 

 calm content in ideas about which the}' have never cai'ed 

 to think, or rather in the belief that there are religious ideas 

 which other men have thought about, and which proliably 

 they themselves would accept as matters of opinion if they 

 could spare time to think them out. Those who think they 

 believe are as numerous as those who believe they think. 

 The two classes, which include the great majority of men, 

 overlap largely, though of course there are many who do 

 not even believe they think, nay rather accept the doctrine 

 that most men vujltt to believe (whatever doctrine lies 

 nearest to them) without thinking at all. And this is 

 perhaps as well, seeing that otherwise a somewhat dan- 

 gerously large number of folk might be troubled with the 

 thought that either the doctrine accepted by them (as lying 

 nearest at hand) maybe unsound, or else the other doctrines 

 must be unsound which are accepted in like thoughtless 



