MIRACLES 



soul is in hopeless contradiction with the most solid 

 empirical truths of modern science."^ 



The great influence which has been exercised on 

 civilized nations by the Christian beliefs, supported by 

 the practical exigencies of the state, for thousands of 

 years, was chiefly seen in the crude superstition of the 

 mass of the people. Confessions of faith became as 

 much a matter of routine as the latest fashion in dress or 

 the latest custom, etc. But even the majority of the 

 philosophers were more or less subordinated to the in- 

 fluence. It is true that a few great thinkers freed them- 

 selves by the use of pure reason at an early date from the 

 prevalent superstition, and framed systems apart from 

 tradition and the priests. But most philosophers could 

 not rise to the altitude of these brave Free-thinkers ; they 

 remained "school-men " in the literal sense, dependent on 

 the dictation of authority, the traditions of the school, 

 and the dogmas of the Church. Philosophy was the 

 "handmaid" of theology and ecclesiasticism. If we 

 examine the history of philosophy in this light, we find 

 in it a struggle for twenty-five hundred years between 

 two great tendencies — the dualism of the majority (with 

 theological and mystic leanings) and the monism of the 

 minority (with rationahstic and naturahstic disposition). 



Especially notable are those great Free-thinkers of 

 classic antiquity who taught a monistic view of life in the 

 sixth century before Christ — the Ionic natural philoso- 

 phers, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes; and a 

 little later, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Democritus. 

 They made the first thorough attempt to explain the 

 world on rational principles, independently of all mytho- 

 logical tradition and theological dogmas. However, 



* Compare the opinion of the distinguished American psy- 

 chologist, Mimsterberg " Science opposes to any doctrine of 

 individual immortality an unbroken and impregnable barrier" 

 {Psychology and Life, p. 85). — Trans. 



5 65 



