MONISM 



dally the improvement of the dwellings and food of the 

 poorer classes, the prevention of disease by healthier 

 habits, baths, athletics, etc., can be traced to the mo- 

 nistic teaching or reason, and is altogether opposed to 

 the Christian belief in Providence and the dualism con- 

 nected therewith. The maxim of modern hygiene is: 

 God helps those who help themselves. 



The remarkable progress of technical science in the 

 nineteenth century, which has stamped our age as " an 

 age of machinery," is a direct consequence of the im- 

 mense advance of theoretical science. All the privi- 

 leges and comforts which modern life gives us are due 

 to scientific discoveries, especially in physics and chem- 

 istry. We need only recall the enormous importance 

 of steam and electric machinery, modern mining, agri- 

 culture, and so on. If by these means modern industry 

 and international commerce have prospered beyond all 

 expectations, we owe this to the practical application 

 of empirical truths. "Mental science" and metaphys- 

 ical speculation have had nothing to do with it. There 

 is no need of further proof that all the technical sciences 

 have a purely monistic character, like their exact sources, 

 physics and chemistry. 



The scientific development of education is one of the 

 greatest tasks of modern civilization. The ideas that 

 are impressed on the mind in early youth are most 

 persistent, and generally determine the direction of 

 thought and conduct for the whole of life. Hence we 

 find the struggle between the two philosophic tendencies 

 assuming the greatest practical importance in this de- 

 partment. As the priests were, thousands of years ago, 

 in the first stages of civilization, the sole trainers of the 

 growing mind, they had charge of the school as well as 

 of medicine. Religion was made the chief foundation 

 of instruction, and its doctrines were the moral guide for 

 the whole of life. The isolated attempts that were made 

 30 465 



