126 THE LIGHT OF DAT 



may damn infants or indorse murderers, it may call 

 itself Calvinism or Methodism or Catholicism or 

 Millerism, and the time spirit will look on content. 

 Any spiritual influence it may still have over the 

 masses, any power to brighten and elevate men's 

 lives, science can thoroughly appreciate. But even 

 the spiritual power of our theological Pope is wan- 

 ing fast. His anathemas no longer inspire terror, 

 his blessings are no longer worth the journey to 

 Rome for. In its chosen realm theology is little 

 more than the vestige of its former self. 



The principle of the unity and completeness of 

 nature, or this perception of nature as an entity, a 

 thing in and of itself, is comparatively a recent evo- 

 lution. Our fathers had it but feebly, our remote 

 theological ancestors not at all. But there is a grow- 

 ing conviction in the human mind to-day that the 

 forces of nature are constant and adequate to all the 

 phenomena of the visible world, and that there is 

 no room and never has been any room for the intro- 

 duction of forces extra-natural. Akin to this, and 

 a part of it, is the feeling that any system of religion 

 to be credible must be in line with the rest of our 

 knowledge. That we apprehend moral, philosophi- 

 cal, artistic, and scientific truth with our normal 

 faculties, but religious truth with a faculty that is 

 a special gift from some power above us and that is 

 not in any way related to the former, is a view hos- 

 tile to the scientific synthesis. Our spiritual know- 

 ledge cannot contradict our natural knowledge. 

 Faith must supplement, not forestall reason. If the 



