104 THE RECONCILIATION. 



thus itself betrays a lurking doubt whether that Incompre- 

 hensible Cause of which it is conscious, is really incompre- 

 hensible. 



Of Religion then, we must always remember, that amid 

 its many errors and corruptions it has asserted and diffused a 

 supreme verity. From the first, the recognition of this su- 

 preme verity, in however imperfect a manner, has been its 

 vital element; and its various defects, once extreme but 

 gradually diminishing, have been so many failures to recog- 

 nize in full that which it recognized in part. The truly re- 

 ligious element of Religion has always been good; that 

 which has proved untenable in doctrine and vicious in prac- 

 tice, has been its irreligious element; and from this it has 

 been ever undergoing purification. 



29. And now observe that all along, the agent which 

 has effected the purification has been Science. We habitu- 

 ally overlook the fact that this has been one of its functions. 

 Religion ignores its immense debt to Science; and Science 

 is scarcely at all conscious how much Religion owes it. 

 Yet it is demonstrable that every step by which Religion 

 has progressed from its first low conception to the compara- 

 tively high one it has now reached, Science has helped it, or 

 rather forced it, to take ; and that even now, Science is urg- 

 ing further steps in the same direction. 



Using the word Science in its true sense, as comprehend- 

 ing all positive and definite knowledge of the order existing 

 among surrounding phenomena, it becomes manifest that 

 from the outset, the discovery of an established order has 

 modified that conception of disorder, or undetermined order, 

 which underlies every superstition. As fast as experience 

 proves that certain familiar changes always happen in the 

 same sequence, there begins to fade from the mind the con- 

 ception of a special personality to whose variable will they 

 were before ascribed. And when, step by step, accumu- 

 lating observations do the like with the less familiar changes, 



