The Conflict of Duties And Other Essays

iences. There are many philosophic notions which somehow filter through books and conversations into the minds of people who are cultivated, if not philosophic. Such persons, at the beginning of their intellectual life, realise how crude and inadequate are most of the conceptions of popular theology. All their notions as to conscience, spirit, immortality become different, and often the phrases in which they have expressed their religious tenets become quite unmeaning. Possibly, too, their more cultured taste may be repelled by the inartistic form of the ritual and other accessories of worship which were once taken for granted. Above all, they see how all their thoughts of God are anthropomorphic and inconsistent. It may be that such thoughts, as they fade into nothingness, take with them all possibility of thinking about God at all, and then comes the bitter cry of one of the greatest scientific men of our day: " The Great Companion is gone! " Even if the result is not so desperate as this, a difficulty is felt in deciding which of the old and strengthening beliefs one can honestly retain when one has passed into a new mental atmosphere. Now, as we have already hinted, if all the dangers pointed out are effectually overcome, the result is a nobler type of religious life than was possible while the intellectual faculties lay dormant. The mind that discerns God in nature is moved to adoration by every great natural discovery. The student of history o...