CH. v.] BELIGION AS ADJUSTMENT. 4ffl 



a subject. But a detailed exposition would not be in keeping 

 with the ;purpose of the present work. It is not my aim to 

 propound a complete theory of religion, or to prepare the way 

 for the inauguration of any new religious system — for I should 

 regard any undertaking of this kind as ah initio self-convicted 

 of absurdity — but simply to show that it is in the power of 

 Science, without proving recreant to its own methods, to 

 maintain every one of the fundamental truths which give to 

 Eeligion its permanent value. Starting from the knowledge 

 of nature which we now possess, and without making appeal 

 to venerated traditions based upon the scantier knowledge 

 possessed by relatively barbarous ages, I have sought to show 

 that the truths already discerned and asserted in these tra- 

 ditions — the fundamental truths to which alone the traditions 

 owe their permanent hold upon men's minds — are in nowise 

 shaken, but rather confirmed and reiterated by our present 

 knowledge. For my purpose, this has been sufficiently shown 

 in the present chapter and its two predecessors. Tor not 

 only have we seen that scientific inquiry, proceeding from its 

 own resources and borrowing no hints from theology, leads to 

 the conclusion that the universe is the manifestation of a 

 Divine Power that is in no wise identifiable with the uni- 

 verse, or interpretablr in terms of " blind force " or of any 

 other phenomenal manifestation ; but we have also seen that 

 the ethical relations in which man stands with reference to 

 this Divine Power are substantially the same, whether de- 

 scribed in terms of modern science or in terms of ancient 

 mythology. And in so far as there is any difference between 

 the scientific and the mythologic view of the sanctions by 

 wnich these ethical relations are maintained, we have seen 

 that the sanctions recognized by the former are even more 

 powerful than those recognized by the latter. While, lastly, 

 as regards the basis of these ethical relations, the superiority 

 of the scientific view is most conspicuously manifest. Far 

 from its being true, as Mr. Mivart seems to fear, that the 



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