RELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT 



that action is influenced by belief. While ob- 

 servation shows that theological scepticism does 

 not exert a deteriorating influence upon char- 

 acter, it cannot be doubted that ethical scepti- 

 cism, could it become dominant, would confuse 

 and obscure the incentives which prompt us to 

 actions in harmony with the environment, and 

 deter us from maladjustments. Practically the 

 momentum of inherited impulse and bequeathed 

 ethical tradition is so powerful that the cases in 

 which theological scepticism has entailed per- 

 manently efl^ective ethical scepticism have been 

 the exception rather than the rule. But what 

 now concerns us is the inquiry whether in the 

 nature of things a substitution of scientific for 

 theological symbols involves an alteration of 

 ethical values in the grand equation between 

 duty and action. We shall find that no such 

 change is involved in the substitution. Though 

 we may, and do, throw overboard the whole of 

 the semi - barbaric mythology in which Chris- 

 tianity has hitherto been symbolized, we shall 

 find, nevertheless, that we have kept firmly in 

 our possession the ethical kernel for which 

 Christianity is chiefly valued even by those who 

 retain the whole of this mythology. 



If we inquire into the position which every 

 theological creed has occupied with reference to 

 the ethical code by which it has been supple- 

 mented, we shall find that in every case it has 



293 



