INFLUENCE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL DISCOVERY ON THOUGHT. 237 



5. To take another instance — geologists and those who have 

 developed the theories of evolution and of the adaptability of 

 organisms to variations in environment, have seriously modified 

 earlier notions respecting the physical side or aspect of the 

 Divine government of the universe. 



In comparison with the multiplication of general information 

 during the last fifty years, the general information on this 

 subject may be said to have been almost stationary for about a 

 hundred and fifty years before the middle of the last century, 

 while every recent discovery of importance, thanks to the press 

 and to popular lecturers and writers, is made as impressive and 

 " sensational " as possible. 



The difference between the logical apprehension of this 

 department of Divine government made possible by modern 

 science, and the imaginative ideas on the same subject which 

 survive the simple beliefs of childhood in men and women of 

 average intelligence, has become so vast as to constitute a grave 

 danger. The revelation of science has seemed to many to cast 

 discredit on the various theological systems of Christendom. 

 Some it has thrown into bewilderment and distress, to others it 

 has furnished excuses for casting off the trammels of religion. 

 It has overstrained intellects of mediocre capacity, causing 

 them to snatch at all manner of faulty and fallacious solutions 

 of their difficulties. 



6. This bewilderment has been, and is, I believe, one of the 

 causes (and not one of the least causes) of the alleged 

 prevalence of indifference to religious matters among both the 

 rich and poor, of the " Pagan London " recently discussed in 

 the press, of the increase in insanity, of the prevalence of 

 inordinate curiosity about matters to which one ought to be 

 indifferent, of much dabbling in (so-called) spiritualism, in 

 " occult " mysteries, and in tortune-telling, as well as of avowed 

 atheism and agnosticism. 



7. A very important element in the bewildering process 

 has been the impairment or suppression of the faculty of 

 anthropomorphism, of imagining Deity in terms of humanity, a 

 faculty which has for ages been a great help to the maintenance 

 of religious feelings among simple folk. It must, 1 believe, 

 constitute the religion of all childhood, and is often indulged 

 in subconsciously by adults, who would repudiate any such 

 notion if formally presented to them, very much as we speak 

 of, and subconsciously imagine, the sun going round the earth. 

 It is hardly venturesome to say that if Milton's Paradise Lost 

 had not yet been written, it could not now be written by a 



