292 Philosofiiy of Botany. 



the courses of instruction. In view of the fact that all doc- 

 trines, including theology, have to incorporate into their teach- 

 ing the results of the natural sciences, as under their discipline 

 alone correct thinking can be acquired, science teaching should 

 on an appropriate scale be attempted in all grades. Abandon- 

 ment of the missionary invasion commends itself on pleas of 

 equity and prudence. Bold persistence in the traditional prac- 

 tice would provoke a permanent and irreconcilable conflict. 

 Should the Eastern nations be considered amenable to the 

 practices of the international code, they must be met on terms 

 of complete political equality, as the disquieting introduction 

 of dogmas alien to their national character, religious and polit- 

 ical institutions born of the most ancient lineage in the world, 

 must naturally appear to them as an unbearable imposition. 



The comparative study of religions — Brahmanism, Bud- 

 dhism, Parseeism, IVIohammedanism — has proven that the ele- 

 ments of pure ethics are the same in all, and like in Christian- 

 ity, and that errors and abuses have, from human depravity, 

 equally corrupted all, and that in the progress of time with a 

 strictly scientific theosophy a harmony could be effected. 



Our own grievous sectarian ebullitions are sorry witnesses 

 of the intellectual neglect and stifling influences of dogmatic 

 superstitions. Those movements are also idealistic waves, 

 but — alas ! — of the briny flood that ruins fertile fields by its 

 overflows. 



Creeds, brought down from hoary antiquity as symbols of 

 pristine religious sentiment, do no longer express the more ex- 

 alted attitude of present generations toward the eternal and 

 infinite, and reasonable and honest theologians are acknowl- 

 edging the right of pure reason to subject to criticism the 

 fountains of those creeds, and the so-called higher criticism 

 is the result. 



Epochs of history do not follow now in such tardy succes- 

 sion as they did in ancient time and still do in uncivilized re- 

 gions, and the coming generation will not have gone into its 

 grave when the portentous commotions produced by the pres- 

 ent idealistic wave will have subsided in compromises and new 

 financial and economic methods. 



