56 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



world, the more incredible the popular Christianity 

 seems to us. To the man of science the old theo- 

 logy is like the traditional conception of angels — 

 men with both wings and arms. 



This conception breaks with the structural plan 

 of all vertebrates the same as theology does with the 

 law of cause and effect. Human beings, with wings 

 in place of arms, might be contrary to the fact ; but 

 such a conception does not violate the homologies of 

 nature, but beings with both wings and arms have 

 no counterpart in the world. They are not merely 

 contrary to experience, they are contrary to the fun- 

 damental principle of structure that runs through 

 the animal kingdom. But when these armed and 

 winged beings were first conceived of, this fact was 

 not known as it is now, and the M»-natural element 

 in Christianity could not have been appreciated in 

 past ages as it is to-day. 



The doctrinal part of the popular Christianity, its 

 supernaturalism, is an inheritance from the past as 

 much as witchcraft or magic is. But it did not 

 break with human knowledge then ; it was in strict 

 keeping with the elements of the marvelous and 

 the exceptional, of which human knowledge was so 

 largely made up. There was no science in those 

 days, no conception of the course of human or nat- 

 ural events as the result of immutable law. The 

 personal point of view prevailed in everything. 

 Everything revolved about man; superhuman be- 

 ings took sides for or against him. Indeed, so far 

 as science or a rational conception of things is con- 



