The parallel is all the more complete in that in many cases false
religions have been also false sciences. The prayer to the fetish for
rain is as contrary to true religion as it is contrary to true science.
Many false religions are most easily overthrown by scientific
instruction. Many false sciences begin to totter when the believers in
them are taught true religion. The ordinary superstitions which have so
strong a hold on weak characters and uninstructed minds, are as
inconsistent with true faith in God as with reasonable knowledge of
nature. Science grows, but the facts, whether laws or instances of the
operations of those laws, are not affected by that growth. And Religion
grows, but the facts of which it takes cognisance are not affected by
that growth. Neither in the one case nor in the other is the fact that
there has been a development any argument to show that the belief thus
developed has no real foundation. The pure subjectivity of Religion, to
use technical language, is no more proved by this argument than the pure
subjectivity of Science.
But there is one most important particular in which the development of
Religion entirely differs from the development of Science. The leaders
of scientific thought, from the time that Science has been conscious of
itself, have never claimed direct divine instruction.
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