Science Christianity and Modern Civilisation 343 



of theory and temper while exhibiting an immense receptivity, we 

 see, as has been suggested above, that the former faith distinguishes 

 itself from the latter, and from all the forms of theosophy which 

 find their inspiration in Indian ideas, by an historical outlook and 

 by a characteristic ethical standard of its own, which, if hard to 

 define, is not so hard to recognise, and which is bound up with the 

 unique place occupied by Jesus in the devotion of Christians. It 

 can scarcely be disputed that neither a comprehension of history 

 nor an ethical standard is to be looked for from the scientific factor 

 in modern civilisation. It is of the essence of science, as we now 

 commonly use the word, to abstract from the human and ethical 

 element in the world which it surveys ; and while it is beyond 

 question that scientific research is a school of many virtues (includ- 

 ing some which religion in general and Christianity in particular 

 have not always promoted), the act of valuation implied in calling 

 them virtues is one which science by itself cannot explain or justify. 

 The ethical standard of the modern world has, as a matter of his- 

 torical fact, been in the main fixed under Christian influence ; and 

 this remains true, even when we have made full allowance for its 

 purification in the predominantly secular atmosphere of recent 

 times from defects which had been fostered by theologians and 

 ecclesiastics. This purification itself can be welcomed by Chris- 

 tians as a legitimate stage in the development of their religion and 

 one consonant with certain aspects of its original character, while 

 they can claim that, in its fundamental principle of love to God 

 and man, together with its fundamental creed that the manifesta- 

 tion of God in humanity centres in the movement of which Jesus, 

 as portrayed in the Gospels and as present by His Spirit in His 

 Church, is the founder and the guide, it can supply to the modern 

 world the religious motive, inspiration, and consecration without 

 which science is in danger of becoming but a powerful instrument 

 in the hand of passions and interests to which scientific men, 

 trained under Christian traditions, would be as unwilling as any 

 to entrust the future of civilisation. 



