60 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



with modem pathology. The whole scheme hinges 

 upon the fall of Adam in paradise as an historical 

 event, an act of disobedience on the part of the origi- 

 nal progenitor of the human family, in consequence 

 of which sin and death entered the world, and the 

 suffering and death of Jesus became necessary to 

 bring about a reconciliation between an angry God 

 and rebellious man ; with the attendant doctrine 

 of the mystery of the atonement, of salvation by 

 grace, of the eternal punishment of the pre-Chris- 

 tian nations, etc. Now this conception as science, 

 or as a rational explanation of the world as it is, 

 and of man's salvation, is on a par with Cosmas's 

 theory of the earth with the sky glued to the outer 

 edges. It shows the working of the same type of 

 mind, it rests upon the same arbitrary and artificial 

 view of things. 



But in all these matters the question now is 

 whether the ancient or the modern point of view 

 shall prevail ; whether evolution, or revelation, is 

 the law of the world. The ancient point of view, 

 as we have seen, was exclusive and arbitrary ; it 

 looked upon the universe as something made and 

 governed by a being or beings external to it. In 

 medicine it regarded all disease as the work of evil 

 spirits, that were to be exorcised by charms or amu- 

 lets or incantations. In politics it inculcated the 

 divine right of kings, that the king can do no wrong, 

 etc. In political economy it taught that the in- 

 terests of nations were mutually antagonistic and 

 destructive of one another. In physical science it 



