If you take a boy to-day, who has a natural bent for poetry, or painting, how much will you help him by filling his mind with scientific methods and theories, rules and exceptions, deductions and compilations, of the various elements which should logically determine the value of the finished product? By giving his intellect a thorough course in scientific training, which may occupy his time and absorb his energy for many years, is it not possible that you will turn out in the end a plodding hack, instead of the inspired artist who might have been?
Did anybody ever feel the poetic beauty of a rose with greater intensity for having examined its petals through a microscope, and learned to classify it scientifically, both as to species and variety?
Did anybody ever learn by scientific rules of grammar and classified tables of words, to speak a foreign language with the ease and charm of a child, who picks it up from a stupid governess in one-tenth the time? The childlike, natural way to learn a language is to absorb it into the system, almost without effort, until it becomes a part of second nature—in much the same way that we absorb tunes. Without the slightest conscious effort, we are absorbing and retaining countless bars of music, all through our lives—yet can anybody imagine an enlightened intellect, undertaking to analyze and classify with scientific method the use of sharps and flats in different kinds of bars, and attempting to learn them in that form?
Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Æneid are generally regarded as great masterpieces of literature. They are full of poetic feeling, imagination, charm and inspiring sentiments. They are still being read by thousands of boys and girls, every year, but they are being read to the accompaniment of grammars, lexicons, and the commentary of learned professors, upon roots, derivatives and obsolete usages. A vast amount of time and energy is devoted to this undertaking, which is usually justified on the ground that it affords excellent training for the intellect. But how about the feelings of admiration and enthusiasm which works of such great beauty were intended to inspire? Are they exercised to the same extent? Or is the tendency rather to trammel and divert them by so much laborious and irrelevant interference?
When we turn to the more personal feelings of the individual, in his intimate relations with other beings, is not the situation much the same? Has scientific thought discovered, or devised, any means of increasing the warmth and tenderness of the human heart? Has the rule of reason made husbands and wives any more devoted to each other, or to their friends? It has succeeded in providing a great many people with a telephone and an automobile, but has it succeeded equally well in providing them with generous feelings of self-denial and consideration for others? Or has its tendency, on the contrary, been rather to interfere with the spontaneous development of such feelings, by attempting to replace them by an analysis of human motives in which calculations of self-interest are made the prime factor?
But it is only when we come to the spiritual feelings that the really radical effects of science upon man's nature are encountered. And the method of these changes is so eminently "reasonable," as to be almost self-explanatory.
First is the question of religion, which in all countries and at all times has been such an important influence in the conduct of mankind. For the time being, let us be content to confine our attention to our own country and our own Christian religion, and ask ourselves frankly what conclusions the modern methods of scientific investigation and the modern rule of reason might be expected to arrive at in regard to that? What about all the miracles so devoutly recorded in the Bible? Through investigation and reason, science to-day considers itself in a position to pronounce them totally unscientific; and the rule of reason concludes that they were presumably founded on the imagination, credulity and ignorance which prevailed in an unenlightened period. What about the angels with the flaming swords, and the voices from on high, the golden thrones of heaven, the raging fires of hell, and the childlike account of the world's creation? With the same complacent assurance, modern science and reason are pleased to brush them aside as concoctions of ignorance and credulity. And so with countless other ideas set down in this same holy book—the motives of jealousy and vanity attributed to the all-wise Ruler—His insistence upon formalities in the manner of worship and baptism and christening—His threats concerning other alleged gods and unbelievers, who dare to dispute His sovereignty. All such ideas, when subjected to the acid test of scientifically enlightened reason, are shown in the colors of absurdity and ridicule.
The general conclusion arrived at by this kind of investigation is considered by scientific minds entirely logical and inevitable. As this so-called holy book is found to contain so many errors, inaccuracies, false statements and absurdities, the notion, or claim, of its being a "revelation," communicated, or inspired, from a supernatural source, is unreasonable and untenable. An all-wise Creator could not be ignorant, or inaccurate. This particular book, like many other similar and rival ones to be found in other parts of the world, may be scientifically assumed to be no more than a typical and very creditable product of the unenlightened civilization which gave it birth.
This tendency and effect of modern science is so direct and obvious that he who runs may read. How far it has already spread and acted upon the great numbers of people who compose our population is not possible to determine. Nor is it of any great importance. As we observed before, it takes considerable time for great changes of this sort to permeate to and become absorbed by the masses. But the evidence is only too plain, on all sides, that this operation is now in full swing and gaining ground rapidly. Among the up-to-date people of the new generation, the religious beliefs of a very large proportion have become so confused and unsettled by it, that they are no longer quite sure in their own hearts whether they have any at all. If you have any doubts about this matter, or have overlooked it, a very little enquiry among the people you meet every day, of all classes and kinds, will suffice to bring it home to you.
Of course, there are still in every community a considerable number of people who cling bravely to the traditions of the past, who deplore and combat with indignation the up-to-date and demoralizing tendencies; who still believe in their religion as firmly as ever, who still regard the Bible as a divine revelation; and who still display the same fervid attachment to the various forms and ceremonies of their particular church.