with the cleansing humor over the weakness of American society in "The People of the Whirlpool." What a glory rests upon home, its simple joys and common duties, in the pages of poet and novelist alike!

We find the spirit of brotherhood in our literature as it has been in our life. It is no lordly pleasure-house for the few, while the multitudes that toil and suffer roam the distant plains like droves of swine. And our elder poets are the voices of freedom, calling for the breaking of whatever fetter lies upon body or soul. The constant theme is the worth of the common man, stripped of all the accidents of life. From the spirit of humanity and brotherhood have come the sense of social and political unity, the growth of national consciousness, and the conviction of purpose and mission in the national life.

The dominant element of our national life has been religious. Christian faith has given to home its simplicity and purity, to labor its honor, to the humblest man his worth, and to the national life its divine significance. And these social forces have been properly interpreted and put in shining form, because our writers have been men of faith. A genuinely religious spirit pervades our literature. Our literary men may depart from the stern and austere worship of the fathers, but they have never lost "the tender and gracious fear which made the glory of Puritan faith, and gave visible force to Puritan character." They may declare their independence of human creeds, but never their independence of God. We have no city of "Dreadful Night," where

"All the oracles are dumb or cheat,

Because they have no secret to express."

Behind the darkest shadow standeth God, "keeping watch above His own."

It is a cause for profound gratitude that the men and women who often search an age to the depth of its consciousness are so often conscious of the presence of God, and see His kingdom growing through the lives and institutions of men

We have not measured the power of literature in training the social conscience when we have thought of it simply as the expression of life. It is prophetic as well as expressive.

Who has put the social passion into so many young English hearts to-day? Why are men working for the poor, identifying themselves with the toilers, living in the midst of sodden and hopeless masses, giving life to save the heart of the empire? It is because Christ's ideal of brotherhood and service has been made beautiful and glorious in verse and

story. John Ruskin made art speak the message of social service, and Arthur Toynbee made culture minister to the lowly. It is wonderfully significant that on each birthday of Robert Browning a company of boys and girls from the most crowded and wretched part of South London lay their tribute of flowers on his grave in Westminster Abbey.

American literature has been no less faithful in giving the social message of democracy. The social conscience was educated until property in human lives seemed a sin against God. That conscience was trained by the fearless and prophetic teachers of our literature, by Whittier's voices of freedom, and Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the Biglow Papers of Lowell.

I have discussed the subject in the light of history rather than in that of present social forces and their expression in the literature of the day. Judgments may thus be saner and lessons more unmistakable. Yet the truth has a present interest that is urgent and must be heard.

We must feel the transitional and critical condition of our age. Immeasurable social forces have been loosed among us. Yet, through the confusion of these contending forces, we must believe, as Christian men, holding to the fact of the present kingdom of God, and His living Spirit, that a new age is coming, of purer faith and truer social righteousness. And we may see something of its gleaming ideals before

us.

How shall these social forces, working in the lives of so many, be interpreted and expressed so that the mind and conscience of the Church shall be devoted to these high ends? Where shall we look for our inspired prophets and leaders? Shall not our literary men, as in the past, share in this sacred ministry?

Thank God, some men are speaking. Here and there a novelist has the social passion. There are sweet voices for a simple life. Here and there a poet has the nobler vision, an essayist puts in living words the truth of society.

We have a multitude of writers; we have infinite skill, and taste, and form. But the coal from the altar is often wanting. Only that deep sense of the sacredness of life, of God in His world, the breath of the Divine spirit, can make our literature cleansing and life-giving.

The writer is brother of the teacher and the preacher in sustaining the higher forces of society. The novelist may be the best teacher. He certainly is reaching the greatest number. The poet may be the best preacher. He certainly sounds deepest into the hearts of the chosen ones. Together we must work for the kingdom of God.

SCIENCE AS A TEACHER OF MORALITY

PROFESSOR JOHN M. COULTER, PÅ.D.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

The subject does not imply that science is professedly a teacher of morality, but that incidentally it makes for righteousness. It would be comparatively simple to select from its contributions to knowledge many that have strongly enforced the necessity of morality; or to point out that its conception of the inevitable consequences of acts has shown that results are a matter of course rather than of chance. To my mind, however, valuable as these contributions may be, they are but superficial indications of an attitude of mind which represents the chief contribution of science to morality. To give a clear conception of the relation of this attitude of mind to morality is difficult, for it is somewhat intangible, and to a certain extent prophetic; but to me it seems to be the most important phase of the subject.

It should be understood further that the subject does not imply that science can replace religion as a teacher of morality; but that in so far as it contributes anything to morality it reinforces religion. "Science" is a term of convenience rather than of exactness, and hence I must state at once that in this paper it means what is called "the scientific spirit," which is a certain attitude of mind. Before attempting to state its relations to morality, I wish to indicate what it is by noting some of its characteristics.

1. It is a spirit of inquiry. In our experience we encounter a vast body of established belief in reference to all important subjects. Nothing seems more evident than that this body of belief belongs to two categories: (1) The priceless results of generations of experience; and (2) heirloom rubbish. Towards this whole body of established belief the scientific attitude is one of unprejudiced inquiry. It is not the spirit of iconoclasm, as some would believe, but an examination of the foundations of belief. It must be evident that this spirit is directly opposed to intolerance, and that it can find no common ground with those who confidently, and perhaps somewhat violently, affirm that the present organization of society is as good as it can be; or that the past has discovered all that is best in education; or that the mission of religion is to conserve the past rather than to grow into the future. This is not the spirit of unrest, of discomfort, but the evidence of a mind whose every avenue is open to the approach of truth from

every direction. I hasten to say that this beneficent result of scientific training does not come to all those who cultivate it, any more than is the Christlike character developed in all those who profess Christianity. I regret to say that even some who bear great names in science have been as dogmatic as the most rampant theologian. But the dogmatic scientist and theologian are not to be taken as examples of the "peaceable fruits of righteousness," for the general ameliorating influence of religion and of science is none the less apparent. It is not the speech of the conspicuous few that is leavening the lump of human thought, but the quiet work of thousands of teachers. Scorn and ridicule of things that others hold in respect is not the attitude of science. Its function is to search for truth and to present it supported by such a convincing body of evidence that error will disappear without being attacked. It is the expulsive power of new knowledge that the teacher of science must rely upon to unsettle ignorant opinion.

2. It demands that there shall be no hiatus between an effect and its claimed cause, and that the cause claimed shall be adequate. It is in the laboratory that one first really appreciates how many factors must be taken into the count in considering any result, and what an element of uncertainty an unknown factor introduces. In the very simplest cases, where we have approximated certainty in the manipulation of factors to produce results, there is still lurking an element of chance, which simply means an unknown, and hence uncontrolled, factor. Even when the factors are well in hand, and we can combine them with reasonable certainty that the result will appear, we may be entirely wrong in our conclusion as to what in the combination has produced the result. For example, we have been changing the forms of certain plants at will, by exposing them to varying combinations of certain substances. It was perhaps natural to conclude that the chemical structure of these substances is responsible for the result, and our prescription was narrowed to certain substances. Now, however, it is discovered that the results are not due to the chemical nature of the substances, but to a particular physical condition that is developed by their combination, a condition that may be developed by the combination of other substances as well, or even by things that are not substances; so that our prescription is much enlarged.

There is a broad application here. For example, in education we are in danger of slavery to subjects. Having observed that certain ones may be used to produce certain results, we prescribe them as essential to the process, without taking into account the possibility that other subjects may produce similar results. In religion we are in

That there

danger of formulating some specific line of conduct as essential to the result, and of condemning those who do not adhere to it. may be many lines of approach to a given result, if that general condition, is a hard lesson for mankind to learn.

result be a

If it is so difficult to get at the real factors of a simple result in the laboratory, and still more difficult to interpret the significance of factors when found, in what condition must we be in reference to the immensely more difficult and subtle problems which confront us in social organization, government, education, and religion!

The habit of considering only one factor, when perhaps scores are involved, indicates a very primitive and untrained condition of mind. It is fortunate when the leaders of opinion have gotten hold of one real factor. They may overdo it, and work damage by insisting upon some special form of action on account of it, but so far as it goes it is the truth. It is more apt to be the case, however, that the factor claimed holds no relation whatsoever to the result, and then the noxious weeds of demagogism and charlatanism flourish. It is to such blindness that scientific training is slowly bringing a little glimmer of light, and when the world one day opens its eyes, and it will be well for it to open them very gradually, the old things will have passed

away.

3. It keeps one close to the facts. There seems to be abroad a notion that one may start with a single well-attested fact, and by some logical machinery construct an elaborate system and reach an authentic conclusion; much as the world has imagined that Cuvier could do if a single bone were furnished him. The result is bad, even though the fact may have an unclouded title. But it too often happens that great superstructures have been reared upon a fact that is claimed rather than demonstrated. Facts are like stepping-stones; so long as one can get a reasonably close series of them he can make some progress in a given direction, but when he steps beyond them he flounders. As one travels away from a fact, its significance in any conclusion becomes more and more attenuated, until presently the vanishing point is reached, like the rays of light from a candle. A fact is really only influential in its own immediate vicinity; but the whole structure of many a system lies in the region beyond the vanishing point. Such "vain imaginings" are delightfully seductive to many people, whose life and conduct are even shaped by them. I have been amazed at the large development of this phase of emotional insanity, commonly masquerading under the name of "subtle thinking."

Science teaches that it is dangerous to stray away very far from