However veritable may have been the original revelations, the tendencies and habits of weaving around them the traditions and superstitions of folklore seem to have been inevitable and universal.
It is the province of Science to ascertain the facts in any given case, to institute comparisons, and to draw deductions and generalizations dispassionately and relentlessly.
It is thus that every tradition, superstition, creed, dogma, and revelation comes under review, and is placed on trial.
True science has no preconceived notion, no foregone conclusion. Each subject examined must tell its own story and in its own way, and stand or fall measured by intrinsic evidence and revealed fact.
To this tribunal every episode in the life of man and the history of the human race must at last come.
What are the facts? What do they reveal and signify?
To most religionists this method and aim of science seem as relentless and dogmatic as their own creed or dogmas.
It is a sifting and discriminative process, that, while relentless, is in the end eminently Just, and in the end will be found to be the revealer of all that is essential and true in religion itself.
In itself, science is not and never can be a religion.
It is a method only, which, like a search-light, reveals all religions in all their essentials, and places them in their true light.