The Higher Usefulness of Science 



religion were first sharply differentiated from each 

 other; when the significance of the historic truth that 

 religion may be highly immoral while a high moral plane 

 may be reached with little mingling of religion, the dis- 

 position on the part of some students was to believe in 

 the complete dissociation of the two. Now, however, 

 that the scientific study of both realms is becoming 

 synthetic as well as analytic, the deeper insight is being 

 reached that while there is a positive distinctness be- 

 tween morals and religion, and a kind of separateness, 

 yet the two are correlated and interlocked in the most 

 complex fashion. Absolute disjunction of the two 

 provinces is no longer to be thought of. In this the 

 traditional teaching of Christianity is right. 



This brings us to where the essence of what I am 

 trying to set forth can be put into a nutshell. All 

 progress toward a system of morals capable of stand- 

 ing the strain of modern civilization has been toward a 

 scientific morality; that is toward a natural morality. 

 But the truth has been repeatedly pointed out by 

 recent students that in the past the most influential 

 moral systems have depended upon belief in the super- 

 natural for their highest enlightenment as to moral 

 duty, and for executive power in the enforcement of 

 moral mandates. In a word, the chief moral doctrines 

 of the past have been rooted in faith in a supernatural 

 order rather than in faith in the natural order. But 

 progress in civilization has now reached a stage in 

 which a system of morals resting finally on belief in 



