68 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



— he simply uses a jargon that may mean something 

 to him, but can mean nothing at all to an outsider. 

 He states things as facts which have no ground 

 either in reason or experience ; they belong to a 

 world apart, which neither the rest of our knowledge 

 nor our natural faculties of reason and observation 

 can put us in communication with. He might just 

 as well talk about the elixir of life or of the philo- 

 sopher's stone. The traditional theology has un- 

 doubtedly proved itself a good working hypothesis 

 with crude and half-developed minds, but upon what 

 thoughtful and cultivated person does it now make 

 an impression ? No race has been lifted out of bar- 

 barism without the aid of supernatural machinery. 

 Once lifted out, how prone we are to discredit the 

 machinery ! We have no further use for it. We 

 have outgrown it. But the mass of mankind are slow 

 to outgrow it. To the mass of mankind the mirac- 

 ulous element of Christianity still seems vital and of 

 first importance. Discredit that, and you have dis- 

 credited religion itself in their eyes. But not so 

 with the philosopher, or with the man who is bent 

 on seeing and knowing things exactly as they are. 



I think it is in accordance with the rest of our 

 knowledge that Christianity could not have made its 

 way in the world, its superior ethical and moral sys- 

 tem could not have gained the ascendency, with- 

 out the cloud of myths in which it came enveloped. 

 What a seal of authentication is put upon it by the 

 myth of the resurrection of Jesus ! How this fact 

 stuns and overwhelms the ordinary mind ! Was it 



