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DR. SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, F.R.S., ON 



to combat them by antiseptic and aseptic treatment. For 

 a whole class of organic poisons known as toxins, antitoxins 

 have been found, and the processes of manufacture of them by 

 cultivation have been worked out. The immense part played 

 in all organic life by ferments has been discovered and partially 

 explored. Biology has been found amenable to statistical 

 mathematical treatment; even the laws of heredity are 

 becoming clear. There has also been a remarkable advance in the 

 study of psychic phenomena, and psychology has found new 

 generalisations from which fresh advances may be expected. 



The methods of science have penetrated into the work of 

 scholars and historians. Antiquarian research has taken new 

 lines. Scholarship is daily becoming more constructively critical 

 and less pedantic. The study of ethnology has thrown a flood 

 of light upon many puzzling points of ancient lore. Such a 

 work as Frazer's Golden Bough, antithetical as much of it seems 

 to the religious mind, cannot fail to produce an immense and 

 clarifying effect upon the study of the ancient religions of the 

 world. It is useless to denounce such sincere and profound 

 investigations because we do not like the conclusions to which 

 they lead. If the facts are those which have been gleaned, 

 there are men of intelligence who can draw their own conclusions 

 from them, and can confute the author if he is wrong ; but the 

 facts remain. One thing the author of that book has made 

 abundantly clear, that in every primitive religion of mankind 

 there is an admixture of folk-lore and myth interwoven 

 almost inextricably with glimpses of the truth. No one can 

 read it without being profoundly impressed with the weight of 

 evidence which it adduces ; and none who sincerely hold the 

 religion of Christ can leave it without the conviction that not 

 even the purest of religions has in the historic past escaped 

 from the inevitable consequences of its human environment ; 

 nor can he rise from the perusal of the treatise without the 

 earnest prayer that the spiritual teachings of Christ may be 

 purged from such accretions of human origin. 



For, the restatement of religious truth in terms adapted to the 

 present age has indeed become a pressing necessity of our time. 

 Alike from the leaders of the various Christian churches and 

 from those outside the borders of any church, we hear the 

 complaint that to an increasing degree Christianity is ceasing 

 to serve the needs of our age. The preachers and teachers 

 complain of the empty state of churches and chapels, and 

 denounce the indifference of the people ; while the columns 

 of the socialist newspapers (such as the Clarion) declare roundly 



