RELIGION IN SCHOOLS 101 



clearly defines his own position in regard to the religious 

 question, and since that position has been much misunder- 

 stood and often misrepresented, it will be well to make it 

 clear. He deplores the current confusion between religion 

 and theology, beginning with the statement that, from 

 the intellectual side, the laws of conduct are a part of 

 moral science, while, "all that has any unchangeable 

 reality in religion " is beyond science, and constituted by 



"... the engagement of the affections in favour of that 

 particular kind of conduct which we call good . . . together 

 with the awe and reverence, which have no kinship with base 

 fear, but arise whenever one tries to pierce below the surface of 

 things, whether they be material or spiritual. . . ." 



Elsewhere he gives the brief definition : — 



"Teach a child what is wise, that is morality. Teach him 

 what is wise and beautiful, that is religion" (Life, i, p. 343, 

 Note 1). 



This naturally calls to mind one of the Platonic ideals, as 

 expressed in the following passage, which follows Plato's 

 criticism of poets : — 



" This being the case, ought we to confine ourselves to superin- 

 tending our poets, and compelling them to impress on their 

 productions the likeness of a good moral character, on pain of 

 not composing among us ; or ought we to extend our superin- 

 tendence to the professors of every other craft as well . . . ? 

 Ought we not, on the contrary, to seek out artists of another 

 stamp, who, by the power of genius can trace out the nature of 

 the fair and the graceful, that our young men, dwelling as it 

 were in a healthful region, may drink in good from every quarter, 

 whence any emanation from noble works may strike upon their 

 eye or their ear, like a gale wafting health from salubrious lands, 

 and win them imperceptibly from their earliest childhood into 

 resemblance, love, and harmony with the true beauty of reason ? " 

 (The Republic of Plato, translation of Davies and Vaughan, 

 new edition, 1874, pp. 96-7). 



