PSYCHICS AND POLITICS

 WALTER BAGEHOT chose "Physics and Politics" as the title of one of his books, though he did not discuss in it the influence of physical science upon social and political life. What he did consider was the influence of heredity on the body politic. This study might have led him to look much deeper and to see the far larger, though latent, influence of the modern interest in physical science upon the tendencies of politics. At any rate, Mr. Bagehot's juxtaposition of the two terms suggests a contrast between the physical and the spiritual conceptions of life and their ultimate influence on ethical, social, and political affairs. The clearly developed opposition between mind and matter, which finally issued in the definite dualism of Descartes, gathered about each term the appropriate associations. Under different auspices the development might have taken another course, but the antithesis between the Epicurean conception of nature and life and the sternly moralistic Christian idea of the soul created opposing centers of gravity for men's beliefs. History records the varying fortunes of their warfare.

Physical science is occupied with the observation and study of the material world, and teaches that the external forces of the universe move relentlessly over every aspiration cherished by the religious mind. Psychology, or the study of the soul, has always sought in the inner life some justification of the belief in another life when the grave has closed over all we know, a hope that would at least set aside the apparent indifference of the universe to the ideals which arise in the creatures of its own activity. At one stage of human reflection the opposition between the two points of view was not so marked; but the predisposition to uncompromising separation of interests and to the organization of these interests into opposing groups, has given matter and mind, physics and psychics, opposite meanings. Ideas once accepted by large bodies of men are not easily set aside. They either become identified with the institutions that serve as their defence, or habit gives them a force which they might not have. Consequently, regardless of their intrinsic merits, they give rise to parties and prejudices which cannot be overthrown except by the prolonged efforts of criticism and the gradual adjustment of the mind to new ideas.

 I have said, or implied, that physical science has exercised a profound influence upon modern social and political life. This influence may be illustrated in a thousand ways. I need not call attention at present to the initial impulse of the movement, which began with the renaissance as a reaction against the excessive occupation of men's minds with the other world. To contrast the civilizations of the Middle Ages and the present would be to bring out into strong relief the two different tendencies and would clearly exhibit the influences which have gradually resulted in the domination of physical science over the life of man. If we compare the meager comforts and enjoyments of the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era with the multiplied resources for pleasure which we now possess, and consider the reluctance of the material universe to concede any favors not extorted from it, we shall form some conception of the power of physical science. The railway, the telegraph, the telephone, ocean travel, the mechanical inventions that cheapen labor and multiply products, cheap printing, and a thousand forms of satisfaction and comfort that ancient and mediaeval societies would not have dreamed of, are now the commonplaces of the poor. They are all due to physical science, which had to win its way against the stubborn opposition of more conservative beliefs and habits. They are all indications of the effect of physics on our institutions.

 The economic ideal, which is only another term for the physical conception of society and human action, is now dominant, and wealth is the standard of success and social recognition. This standard has been accepted even by the religious institutions of the age; and we have so far departed from the spiritual conception of life as to neglect all features of it except intellectual culture, which is valued more for its efficiency in the economic and social world than for the development of the soul. Such are the triumphs of physical science and the ideals fostered by it. Its utility is demonstrated by its success in supplying the comforts which seem to us both a pleasure in themselves and a protection against the cruelties of nature. The older religious ideals, which despised these comforts as "carnal" and turned the imagination toward another world, the "Elysian fields where joy forever reigns," as contrasted with this life of pain and suffering, have lost the basis on which they rested. We have found physical and economic salvation in the conquest of nature, instead of despising its power and living in penury and contemplative asceticism. Physics has determined and dominated all the ideals of our life and must affect our ethics in proportion as it has supplanted the spiritual conceptions of another philosophy. How far this influence will extend depends upon the degree to which it takes possession of the lower strata of society.

 The rejuvenation of the social order and of civilization fell to Christianity after the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The one central tenet of Christianity is its association of the immortality of the soul with the brotherhood of man. It did not begin in a system of philosophy or theology. A reasoned theism was no part of its primary impulse, however closely it might be related to such a system. The divine supervision of the world was not its fundamental belief, though it might be accepted as a corollary of the primary doctrine. The belief in a future life was its initial doctrine, and received its credentials from an appeal to real or alleged facts. The view that immortality can be accepted as the corollary of a theistic interpretation of nature was a later conception, arising when Christianity was so far removed from its origin that its miracles and traditions were objects of suspicion. This first inspiration was received from the direct observation of facts, or alleged facts, which directly challenged the prevailing materialism. The Epicureans had denied the possibility of survival after death, and their philosophy dominated Rome in its declining days and the most important political sect in Palestine, the Sadducees. Judaism was no longer under the direction of its older religious conceptions, which had indeed never made belief in the immortality of the soul a social influence. Such a belief could not become important to social institutions until it was used to enforce certain ethical maxims. What gave the immortality of the soul its ethical and political value was its association with the brotherhood of man in the doctrine of salvation. Neither Judaistic nor Greek civilization attached any special importance to the doctrine as a means of enjoining the virtues that would lead to happiness beyond the grave. The doctrine of probation for a future life had not yet developed. It was latent in the religions of Greece and Rome and was perhaps an unconscious factor in the ethical position of some Hebrews, though it was not sufficiently active in that religious system to obtain any definite recognition. In Greco-Roman literature a doctrine of probation as an encouragement of virtue is apparent. We all know it in the works of Plato and Vergil, and they but reflected, in this respect, the popular religion, so that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul as held by them already foreshadowed the later view of salvation. It did not, however, take on the fire and enthusiasm of a religion until social and political life began to break up and men felt that there was no hope of realizing their ideals in a world that offered so much resistance to their struggles. Physics and politics were against them, the one making creature comforts, the other social freedom impossible to obtain. In this condition of things it was natural to turn the eyes to some future world either as a reward for following duty or as a punishment for transgression. In this way the thought of immortality began to encourage the performance of duties hitherto sanctioned only by society; and the happiness which a decaying world could not grant in this life was hoped for in another. The organization of virtue and happiness around the concept of a future life gave it the power to influence ethics and politics. The assertion of the persistence of personality was important to the individual, and the association of the idea with human brotherhood gave it an influence on political institutions.

 In the present age, which represents a reaction against the extreme other­worldliness of the mediaeval period, there are many who will question the value of belief in immortality. They will point to the superior civilization which has been the result of the conquests of physical science. While I shall not gainsay much that is urged in support of this contention, I may call attention to two facts. The first is, that all this conquest of nature was rendered possible by the firm establishment in men's minds of the virtues which gave stability to the social order and so made possible the continuity of scientific progress. The second is, that we are too closely attached to a materialistic order as yet to see its tendencies and consequences, except as they are beginning to reveal themselves in the decadence of the virtues that protected the advance of physical science itself. Moreover the materialist may not be in a position to estimate rightly the nature of the order which he denies. His victories over the physical world, in subordinating it to his desires, may blind him to the value of what he lost by turning his view from the spiritual conception of man and life. The distortion of this conception in the past has concealed from us the better aspects of the spiritual ideal; and, while we are forced by our nature to make concessions to the demands of the physical world, it is just as easy to overestimate the value of the physical as of the spiritual. We may therefore turn a scrutinizing and skeptical eye toward the confident worship of physical science which is trying to supplant the conceptions that have made us rise above nature while we conquered it.

 However, we may disregard the question of ethical value and limit our consideration to the efficacy of the spiritual view as an agent in the determination of human institutions. The Middle Ages are proof of the power of belief in a future life to affect civil institutions. That influence may have been good or bad. But its effectiveness as a motive is well authenticated by twenty centuries of history. What I wish to show is that all general ideas inevitably affect ethical and political institutions in proportion to their success in organizing about them the various customs and duties which they are made to protect. If other general ideas are thus effective, we may establish a presumption that the belief of immortality is of similar character. This conception, with its relation to important ethical ideas, will hardly fall short of others in the power to mold human life and institutions. Let us illustrate by reference to beliefs which have no ethical implications.

 The effect of a general conception on human conduct may be illustrated by the influence of monotheism in religion and monism in philosophy on the tendencies of Greek politics. In the earlier stages of her development Greece was under the domination of polytheism in religion and of provincialism in politics. Indeed they were one and the same thing. The influence of local divinities was as noticeable as it was during the struggle of Judaism for Jehovah against foreign gods. Polytheism was itself the expression of local independence, and nothing could incite the Grecian states to any unity of action except threatened invasion by Persia. The warfare of the gods both expressed or perpetuated the same state of affairs in the Achaean peninsula. In the colder region of philosophy the same idea was expressed in the conception of Chaos followed by a multiple of elements always in the process of union and disruption. The religious and philosophic ideas ran parallel and had their influence on political action, which consisted of perpetual war and preparation for war. Brotherhood and the arts of peace were hardly possible when the gods set no ethical example and when nature was conceived as a chaos of elements struggling into a casual and transient order.

 But Xenophanes, the philosopher, came forward to express in one conception the unity of nature and of the Divine. He insisted, against both anthropomorphism and polytheism, that there was but one God and that he was not human in character. The philosophers, who were the educators of the statesmen, urged this view; and, with the rise of skepticism concerning the character of the gods, it gained possession of all thinking minds. Instead of a chaos of warring elements, the world was conceived as a cosmos, an orderly arrangement of harmonious elements. Hardly had philosophy achieved this triumph when Alexander the Great undertook to extend the area of empire. We must not forget that he was educated by Aristotle, the greatest of philosophers, and, as Dante called him, the "master of those who know." Aristotle may not have approved of the military conquests of his ward; but that conception of unity and order expressed in the Demiourgos of Plato, the Nous of Anaxagoras, and the primum mobile of Aristotle, was the precursor of the empires of Alexander the Great and of Julius Caesar. It brought forth directly in the Stoics the anticipation of Christianity expressed in their conception of the brother hood of man. Whether because of indolence or social corruption and decay, they did not put their doctrine into practical effect, and the traditions of war kept back human redemption until another civilization could revive it under the wings of theism and the belief of immortality, when the "wars and commotions that had revolved through long tracts of time had terminated in one immense dominion and the troubled elements of human society sank into universal calm. The spirit of war, wearied by perpetual carnage, had seemed willing to enjoy a moment's slumber or was hushed into silence by the advent of the Prince of Peace."

 The brotherhood of man came first as the ideal of a philosophy unable to contend against the decadence of the social system that Plato had tried to preserve. But belief in the unity of nature extended the conception of government and left to all posterity the ideal of a state that shall realize universal empire without conquest, an ideal that arbitration and the Court of The Hague are now attempting to bring about.

 Let me take, as another instance of the influence of a concept on conduct and politics, Copernican astronomy. Until the sixteenth century it was the universal belief that the sun went around the earth. The earth was conceived as the center of the universe toward which all heavy matter moved unless sustained by some mysterious power. There was no theory of gravity to explain this motion. The earth was supposed to be flat, and, without adequate means of navigation, there was no way to refute this hypothesis. The ignorance and superstition of the age prevented the exercise of that adventurous spirit which later surmounted so many obstacles. The known limits of the earth were very narrow, and, with no unifying conception like gravitation to explain the cosmos and the relations of its parts, the mind was left free to believe in all sorts of capricious powers or beings as explanation of such unity as was actually found.

 But the Ptolemaic system had its anomalies which appeared confusing to Copernicus. He simply asked whether the hypothesis that the earth moves about the sun would not satisfy all the demands of an explanation and eliminate the perplexities which had to be solved in the Ptolemaic system by suppositions as disturbing as the primary assumption. Copernicus saw that this new theory fitted, and so clear were its consequences that the priests thought to overthrow it by asserting that, if it were true, the planets would show phases as does the moon. Galileo accepted the challenge and pointed out the phases of Venus. From that time on the triumph of Copernican astronomy was assured. This discovery may be said to have given the initial impulse to the Protestant Reformation. It was not so felt, nor was it a part of any conscious revolt against the political and ecclesiastical institutions of the Middle Ages, but it was a decisive triumph over accepted ideas. The stupidity of the church had given the incipient scientific spirit an opportunity to display its power. That stupidity consisted in having linked religious beliefs too closely with the fortunes of a cosmic theory that was not true. At first Christianity was concerned only with the immortality of the soul and the brotherhood of man and the worship of God, without concern for any speculations about the nature of the world. But in becoming the heir to the Roman Empire as an agent for the reorganization of society, the church appropriated the domain of physical knowledge and associated it so closely with its scheme of salvation that the least break in its wall would threaten it with destruction. Its power frightened every inquirer away from the study of nature, and kept men respectfully silent concerning everything but the prevailing conceptions in politics and religion, and in these fields expression had to be obsequious and flattering. The church had complete control of knowledge and behavior.

This coalition of science and religion was both a strength and a weakness. If religious belief had been placed upon a basis unaffected by the vicissitudes of physical science; no change in the constitution of that knowledge would have affected the fortunes of the church. It might have gone on in blissful peace, unharmed by physical discoveries. But the tendency was to associate religion with science, to identify it with cosmic views. The ancient toleration of all religions, the result of the politician's indifference to them and his exclusive interest in economic questions, had kept religion more or less free from concern with physical knowledge. Religious people were taxed, not educated. But Christianity set a new example. Man was to be saved, and taxation became a secondary interest. The church set about the unifying of human opinion. With the machinery of the Roman Empire in its hands, it could use force as well as reason to achieve this unity; and it used these resources with relentless energy. It was impossible to avoid appropriating physical science, such as it was, to this end, and after Paul had set the example of conceiving man's salvation as a part of the cosmic system, it was only natural that the church, which was at the same time the state, should monopolize all knowledge and determine the right to believe or not to believe. From the tolerance of all religious beliefs which had characterized Pagan policy it went to the opposite extreme of tolerating none but its own, and thus claimed the keys to all knowledge physical and spiritual, holding the scepter of political power to enforce its claims.

 It will be apparent that the whole system was thus delicately balanced. The effectual disturbance of any part of It involved the whole in ruin, though it would take as many ages to effect the dissolution as it would take to educate the whole mass of believers. Copernican astronomy established the falsity of one of the fundamental tenets of the church. Confidence in its authority and wisdom was irretrievably shaken by the proof that the Ptolemaic conception of celestial action was false. To yield without resistance and to reconstruct its position in accordance with the new point of view was as much the policy of wisdom as it was of allegiance to the truth. But the church would have none of this policy. It forced Copernicus to recant and threatened Galileo with the stake. It clearly saw the consequences of the new knowledge and thought to controvert its influence. No doubt there were sporadic and perhaps frequent cases of skepticism throughout this period, but the skeptic is not usually a missionary and is adept in the prudences which center about self­preservation; besides, the power of those in authority was so great as to make any other course than prudence appear foolhardy. Only when a man had the courage of a martyr would he venture to question the integrity of the system under which he lived.

 It is to be remarked that those who sought to correct the scientific beliefs of the time still sincerely adhered to the religious doctrines of the church. But the ecclesiastical tribunal insisted that physical science was intimately bound up with its scheme of salvation and spiritual philosophy. It was determined that the new view of the cosmos should not prevail, and thus exposed itself to the tremendous consequences of Galileo's telescope, which gave actual sensible proof of what the priests themselves had said should follow from the claims of Copernicus. No more effective mode of silencing opposition could have been devised. It took time to effect the final overthrow of ecclesiastical domination, but the coming destruction was evident in this one incident in the career of scholasticism. There followed Kepler's theory that the planetary orbits were ellipses, and both Galileo and Kepler prepared the way for Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Then came the theory of evolution, which did for time what Newton and Copernicus had done for space, unifying cosmic causal action in both spheres, in direct antagonism to the dogmas of the church.

 On its practical side, this new astronomy gave impetus to the curiosity which led to the theory of Columbus that land should be found on the opposite side of the earth. The next inevitable step was to penetrate beyond the limitations of vision which the sea placed upon human knowledge. To establish a reason for undertaking such a journey, Columbus had to use the difference between the specific gravity of water and of solid matter to prove that there must be land at the antipodes to balance the protrusion of the European continent from the ocean. Step by step the whole system of knowledge and economic interest led to this issue. America opened up to the imagination and cupidity of Europe such a field of adventure and exploitation as made the Crusades appear worthless in comparison. But all was done in the name and under the protection of religion. Neither an avowed nor a concealed attack on that system was involved. The new opportunity for adventure and for the acquisition of wealth could easily claim and receive the patronage of the church. The ultimate influence of the new discoveries on religious belief was not apparent. But the discovery of the new world was only another result of the initial conception of Copernicus.

 The next step was a direct assault on the authority of the Pope and an attack on the church in its central position. The Protestant Reformation simply marked the growth of the skepticism which had been encouraged by the triumph of Galileo when he exhibited to every human eye the phases of Venus. Physical science had by this time established its claim to a hearing, more or less regardless of the consequences to traditional dogma. Its votaries, however, still claimed allegiance to the church and tried to enlist the new knowledge in its defence. But the Reformation emancipated thought sufficiently to free it from any need of defending itself by obsequiousness, and physical science soon took a course which placed it in antagonism to religion. The freedom of conscience was only a corollary to the freedom of the intellect, which was established beyond the right of cavil by the death-blow dealt by Copernicus to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy.

 No better illustration of the influence of an idea, worked out into its logical consequences, on the common conceptions of mankind could be imagined. If astronomy had been a matter of interest to only a small clique of philosophers, its influence would have extended no farther. But the sense-perception of men was so identified with the Ptolemaic system that a direct and intelligent assault upon it was necessary to show the senses their error. Proof of the fallibility of those who had been the depositors of all knowledge disturbed the general confidence and established a new source of knowledge and a new standard for scientific discovery and advancement. The supremacy of the church was doomed from that moment, though it took many centuries to complete its downfall, aided by the inventions that, under the direction of physical science, have so cheapened the spread of knowledge that it comes within the reach of the multitude. The printing press and the invention of paper made this dissemination possible; but they would hardly have had permission so to extend knowledge but for the weakness of the church after the enforced surrender of its old authority as the protector of all human beliefs. The keystone of its arch was its cosmogony; and, when Copernicus removed this, it fell into ruins, though it took time to relax the cohesiveness of its parts. The whole of modern history was determined by this one revolution in thought. The same development might indeed have occurred without these specific discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo; but these were crucial events in the actual series that constitute history. It is certain that the break in the wall was actually accomplished by Copernicus, no matter how many before him may have seen or felt its weakness. The initial impulse to revolution was given by his conception of the cosmos, though it might not have proved effective but for the sympathy and aid that he received from the intellectual preparation prevalent among his contemporaries. This one idea was the rallying point for reconstruction, and must have the credit of starting human knowledge upon the course of its subsequent development.

 No one can directly trace the effect of this scientific revolution upon politics, but it is nevertheless a remote consequence of Copernican astronomy that our political institutions are what they are. No political freedom is possible until men have obtained intellectual freedom, and no one had this intellectual freedom until the progress of physical science and discovery had shown that the church held false views of the universe. Church and state were so closely associated that the slightest disturbance of their union was sure to make itself felt throughout the whole organism. The Reformation recognized this relation, and, after trying to obtain its freedom without a break with the papal system, Germany obtained it only by the use of political power. England soon followed under Henry VIII, and the papal power began to weaken. Gradually Europe threw off the shackles and the papal supremacy remained intact only in Italy and Spain, until at last Italy confined the political dominion of the papacy to the Vatican. But states could not throw off the yoke of the church without teaching their subjects the same rebellious spirit. Men had already learned to distrust the authority of the priest, first in science and finally in religion. But gradually the spirit which had led men to resist authority on scientific questions expressed itself in opposition to the arbitrary powers of government, and representative institutions were the consequence. Political freedom is thus traceable to the work of Copernicus in disputing the Ptolemaic astronomy. I shall not venture to assert that this one early astronomic discovery was the only force leading to the final result, but it is entitled to precedence in the estimation of causes.

 We see, therefore, in the history of conceptions, those of the unity of the world and of the Copernican astronomy, the ultimate influence of ideas on social and political institutions. Both were scientific doctrines, yet they affected such remote concerns as constitutions and governments.

 We are all familiar with the influence of the theory of evolution on modern ideas of nature and man, and with its destructive effect on the older ethical ideas and institutions. It has given impetus to the materialistic tendencies of the age, initiated by the physical discoveries of the past, and its influence has not yet reached its climax. But I shall not work out the details of this last agency in modifying our conceptions of nature and man. It suffices to have shown the social and political effects of two great physical doctrines, and then to ask whether any special conception of man and his destiny can have a similar effect on human institutions.

 One does not have to go beyond Gibbon to know what influence on history the doctrine of man's immortality has exercised. It produced this effect without applying the brotherhood of man in connection with the doctrine of immortality, as it had been taught by the founder of Christianity. The concept of human brotherhood was as much a reaction against the narrow policy of Judaism as it was the logical consequence of Greek monism in philosophy. Judaism had drawn very sharply the distinction between the "stranger" or Gentile and its own race, and the former was almost entirely outside the pale of the law and the sanctuary. But when the better spirits of that race saw the defects of this narrow conception of God and man, even in the time of the prophets, they, like the Stoics, recognized the wider duties of human relationship, though without expressing them in civil institutions. The subjugation of Palestine by the Roman legions, however, brought home the lesson. In the dissolution of the ancient religion and the political institutions of the Jews, the utter desolation of both their sanctuary and their law, there came the sense of human brotherhood that never had appealed to the national consciousness in the days of its triumphs. The mind was prepared by its afflictions and the loss of its national hopes to listen to another gospel that suddenly appeared on the horizon—a belief that had not been characteristic of Judaism, namely, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. It arose in opposition to the materialism of the Epicureans that had dominated the later periods of Greco-Roman history and that had come to infect the sects of Judaism. It established a new point of view for the interpretation of the world and of man. With its spiritual conception of God, this new doctrine availed to give the spiritual conception of things the primary place in determining the meaning of the cosmos and human institutions. The ultimate reality of matter was denied, and spirit was regarded as the cause instead of the effect of matter. The whole of mediaeval philosophy and theology was based upon this conception. The whole material universe was supposed to have been created by spirit and subordinated to the interests of man and his salvation.

 Apart from comparison and contrast of the Greek with the Judaistic movement, the important point is the place which the idea of the immortality of the soul held in the reconstruction of political institutions that had crumbled into ruin on account of the ravages of materialism. What it kept in the forefront of human thought was the value of the individual man, the permanent importance of his personality, showing that it was this and not the glories of the state that survived the ravages of time. Ancient civilization had no such conception of the relation between the state and the individual citizen as we hold. Man existed for the institutions, political and religious, that prevailed. He was a servant, not a master, of the social order. He paid his tribute and gave his life to it without being able to exact any but the most meager service from it. The state had all the rights and the citizen none, and on critical examination the state turned out to be embodied in certain favored individuals with irresponsible power to rule the citizen as they pleased. But to adopt the immortality of the soul as the center of human interest and to conceive the cosmos as an order subordinate to man's development and salvation wrought a profound change. It brought forward, not only the value of the individual, but also a conception of his relation to things which opposed his subordination to political masters and made even nature a servant to his ends. In this way the immortality of the soul involved human brotherhood; and this latter idea attained a practical importance, instead of a purely speculative interest.

 When the attempt to put into practice the brotherhood of man by its early communistic system had failed, Christianity concentrated its interest on the realization of its kingdom of God in a life beyond the grave; and, with an ascetic view of life and a pessimistic view of nature, it set about reorganizing ethical and religious institutions around the idea of personal salvation. The radical character of its theistic conception, which made no concessions to materialism, and the enthusiasm for a future life resulted in fifteen centuries of uninterrupted triumph for the Christian view of life and social relations. The traditions of government, combined with other influences, made it impossible or inconvenient to carry out the communism implied in the notion of human brotherhood, and the mediaeval period had to be content with charity as the embodiment of its social feeling; and even this was regarded as a means of personal salvation rather than as the expression of altruistic feeling. But two ideas remained dominant in the minds of men: the immortality of the soul and the attainment of that immortality by human service. These ideas implied the subordination of the state to the welfare of the subject, even though government continued to use its power for arbitrary and selfish ends. Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar sought to establish universal dominion for the sake of the glories of political power and conquest; Christianity in the Middle Ages sought the same end, at least nominally and ostensibly, for the salvation of the citizen. The early Christian's "Kingdom of God," Augustine's "Civitas Dei," and the "Utopia" of Sir Thomas More could not have been conceived on any other basis, and they lacked only the will of men in order to become effective.

 The placing of man's hopes in another life tempted him to buy his salvation with perfunctory works. He also showed a contempt for physical nature hardly compatible with his view of the relation of Providence to its creation. The reaction against the debaucheries of Epicurean materialism carried him into an "otherworldliness" scarcely less objectionable than the previous worldliness. The belief that matter is essentially evil in its nature led only to the fixing of human vision on an imaginary world that was less carnal only because it could not be made the subject of personal experience here and now. Such a statement, of course, is qualified by the presence, in many minds, of purer conceptions of duty and of the hereafter. But even Dante's and Milton's works were founded on a more literal interpretation of Christianity than the idealistic theories that came after. The very necessity of adapting its ideals to the understanding of the multitude for whose salvation every individual was responsible was an influence to keep religious conceptions upon the plane of the sensory imagination. Protestantism, with its vindication of individual judgment, put the priest at the mercy of those whom he had previously been privileged to direct, and inevitably the standard of sense-perception again became the measure of truth even in the strongholds of the church. With the revival of this point of view, the ascetic conception of life was sure to meet criticism. The renaissance, on the one hand, with its revival of interest in Greek ideals, and the reinstatement of the study of nature in astronomy, physics, and chemistry, on the other, brought into being the materialistic attitude that has dominated the subsequent centuries.

 But, if the priority of spiritual interests resulted only in their overthrow by physical science, we shall be asked why we attempt to reinstate an idea that has been tried and found wanting. When so much progress has been effected by modern science, why endeavor to turn its wheel backward?

 The first answer is that we have only been stating history, not adopting an ideal. I have been mainly interested in the efficacy of the spiritual ideal to produce a civilization and to sustain it much longer than Greece and Rome were able to maintain their institutions. If duration of success is a measure of value, the Christian conception of life has won the approval of time, and it yet remains for physical science to accomplish a similar result.

 A second reply is simply to call attention to the consequences of the materialism in which we live. One need not question the importance of the revival of physical science; and this concession is not grudgingly made. The religious mind had forfeited the confidence of most intelligent men by its departure from fact, as well as by its alliance with corrupt political institutions, and it had become so petrified in external works and ceremonies that the really ethical mind could not accept its hypocrisies, even when it conceded the value of ritualism to some temperaments. When physical science had once proved its ability to explain the universe, or at least to show that the order of nature had not been accurately described by the theologians, the way was opened for the system which could make the world appear reasonable. The confidence in priestcraft was impaired and in its place came the enthusiasm for nature and for those who could understand its processes and use its agencies in the service of human comfort.

 The triumph of physical science has given us what may be called the economic age, an age in which the accumulation of wealth is greater than at any other period of history. We enjoy advantages which antiquity never dreamed of. We have multiplied the forces of invention and machinery, which increase production a hundredfold and, in thus increasing the supply of goods, similarly increase the demand. The production due to machinery has far outstripped the actual needs of even the larger population; but it has been matched by a similarly greater consumption. This satisfaction of an increased number of desires leads directly to the estimation of life by physical instead of intellectual and spiritual standards. Political freedom followed the emancipation of the intellect by science and created preconceptions on which the average mind measures the claims of any belief, while the reign of comfort compared with the struggle for existence in the Middle Ages makes most minds inaccessible to spiritual appeals. Ethics has to wait on economics, for when the latter gets the first hearing there is no time nor inclination for the former. The theater is preferred to the church. We doubt the reality of any life hereafter to make sacrifices for, and we "make hay while the sun shines," that is, we expend all our labor in the accumulation of the means for physical enjoyment. Travel and amusement offer more pleasure than does worship, and, as nature is not to be feared but appropriated to the making of money, there are no terrors to blast our hopes. If we can make our satisfactions of the sensuous sort sufficiently intense, we may be so spiritually benumbed as not to fear death any more. We face it, not as Stoics, whose maxims pay an involuntary tribute to hopes that they do not share, but as Epicureans, who have got all they want until their satiated senses no longer feel the love of life. We expect the sacrifices we make to be repaid with interest, and we place our political power in the hands of the "business" man who knows how to play the part of a sophist while he rifles our pockets. The standards of success are those of the money maker, not those of the moralist. The measure of social standing is wealth, not intellect nor conscience. We are unable to accomplish anything without money, and common labor is a disgrace. All the duties of the world rest on the poor and all the liberties are with the rich.

 It is scarcely possible to overestimate the influence of this materialism. We all know its power, but ignore its tendencies. Our philosophy does not protect us against the insidious encroachments of this materialism, which is as triumphant in speculation as in practice. We think Idealism is no protection against it, for in fact there is no difference between them in their practical working, except that one prizes intellectual accomplishments and the other financial success and sensuous enjoyments; neither acts on the supposition that we have a soul that survives death. The first great philosophical assault on Christian theology was the doctrine of the indestructibility of matter. Christianity affirmed the secondary and created nature of matter in all its forms, both sensible and supersensible. Plato had maintained that the function of Providence was only to arrange the cosmic elements in their order. Anaxagoras had held the same view of his Reason or Nous. Aristotle had his primum mobile start the universe and then sit back in contemplative bliss to watch it go. The Epicureans had taught that chance coincidence brought together the eternal elements or atoms and that the whole creation was brought about by these chance combinations of imperishable atoms. But Christianity assaulted this central position of the indestructibility of matter and took spirit to be the permanent reality. But the scientific proof of the indestructibility of matter and later of the conservation of energy exposed the error of this position, and the main philosophic fortress of Christianity was captured. The inevitable effect was to give matter the priority in speculative interest and to subordinate spirit to it. Spirit, from being the substance of reality, became its phenomenon, a transient accompaniment of it in some of its manifold organic forms. This view was soon supported by the discoveries of physiology, in which consciousness seemed to be the victimized creature of brain functions, not the ruler of a material organism. All the phenomena which the older view had regarded as proving the existence of a soul came to be regarded as mere incidents in the casual development of material bodies. Materialism became triumphant and the human mind, liberated from the speculative and political shackles of the mediaeval period, began to enjoy its freedom in gradually breaking away from all the restraints that had developed and sustained the social, political, and religious conscience for so many centuries. We are still living in the period of rapid decline of the ethical impulse, and nothing but the possibility of reinstating a spiritual view of nature and life can restrain the progress of that retrograde movement.

 The effect upon politics was felt as soon as the spiritual view of nature and life had lost the confidence of the public. Materialism relaxed the force of conscience while it opened the physical world to unlimited exploitation. All our laws are judged by those in power according to their relation to "business" or the accumulation of wealth, and the politician is as conscienceless as was the tax-gatherer in the Roman Empire. He has no ideals of human welfare, but only the desire to make the citizen pay tribute to his avaricious ambitions. If he can manipulate the laws he will save himself the trouble of work. The common citizen becomes saturated with the same ideals, and society is a struggle for wealth instead of for character. Science is on the side of materialism and all intelligence is against the church. But on all the issues that concern the correction of materialism the church itself is divided and is hopelessly implicated in the same ideals as our political system. In order to hold itself together the church has been obliged to resort to everything except the appeal to intelligence and may soon be reduced to mumbling a ritual over the cerements of its past. Materialism governs the thought and action of the common laborer, who was once under the influence of religion, and of the highest officers of state, who were once proud to serve the public, but now have only a predatory interest in the service which they can extort from the helpless citizens. We are following the path of Greco-Roman civilization in the days of its decadence, because the same economic and social forces are operative now as then, under the loss of the ethical ideals and beliefs of the preceding religious period. The laboring classes have abandoned their religion, and are struggling with the capitalists for a share in the profits of production. Their philosophy and ideals are the same as those of the capitalist; they too are straining their efforts only to secure a larger share of materialistic reward.

 I am not questioning the right to insist on economic justice nor even the importance of more nearly equal distribution of the world's goods. But the value of this larger share will depend wholly upon the use to which it is put when it has been acquired. Money is power, and like all power it should receive respect only in proportion to its furtherance of ethical ideals. Materialism offers no ideals but those of sense to the majority of men; the few who follow the intellectual life make it an otiose escape from toil. The ultimate value of this culture and of the inner life is not indicated. It is to end in the grave and nothing is to be left to our children but the short memory of it. The redemption that we seek is from poverty, not from sin. The joys of life are those of the table, the holiday, and the theater.

 This is a dark picture, and there are not wanting exceptions to whom such a judgment does not apply. I have no doubt that more than five can be found to save our modern Sodom and Gomorrah. There is always a sufficient leaven to protect the whole from final destruction; but it is the part of a discussion like this to point out the tendencies that might reduce the saving influences to impotency. We need above all to revive the spiritual meaning of existence. I do not mean that we shall return to the beliefs of the past, nor that we have to subordinate the material universe to spirit in the same sense as before. Certain discoveries of physical science with their implications must remain a permanent acquisition of knowledge and practice. They have taught us to acknowledge that inflexible order of nature which is quite as important to our ethics as any revelation of its limitations. A part of man's salvation lies in the humility which a fixed order makes necessary; only false pride can come from feeling that he has nature always at his command. A limitation on the will is quite as important as freedom, and a materialism which imposes inexorable limits to human arrogance is quite as ethical an influence as any view which makes man despise nature. But materialism may be as one-sided as spiritualism; we need to restore the importance of consciousness and duty in the world, and this restoration depends on the proof that there is a soul and a future life instead of mental phenomena that are mere incidental functions of the brain.

 If psychic research promises anything to the world it holds out hope of throwing light upon the nature and destiny of the soul, and of doing this by the scientific method instead of by pure speculation or faith. If belief in immortality carries the same assurance that we have of Copernican astronomy, Newtonian gravitation, and Darwinian evolution, it will have an efficacy that can never attach to a belief not so assured.

 The revival of the importance of spirit in nature will have the same power to uphold moral agencies in the world that it had in the past. The value that the doctrine gives to human personality enables the teacher of mankind to enforce his ideals of morality. We have seen what a subordinate place the individual had in the politics of antiquity, when the social system took no account of the importance of personality and of our duty to save it. No sense of responsibility for the salvation of our neighbor was inculcated in the ancient religion or politics. Those in power were at liberty to exploit the rest of mankind as they pleased. But Christianity created a new social standard, based upon the importance of the individual soul and our responsibility for its salvation. The materialistic reaction has threatened this conception with extinction, as is apparent in the new imperialism that has arisen and in the contempt for other races that has followed. We no longer feel the racial sympathy that the missionary felt or the sense of the unity of the human race created by the obligation to extend the influence of Christianity. We have adopted morals that threaten our own race with extinction and then despise or fear those races that promise to take our place. That our social conduct might injure a soul's life after death does not enter into our calculations. But if we can prove that the materialistic theory of consciousness is false and that man has a more important end than the satisfaction of his bodily wants and his merely earthly happiness we shall have established a new fulcrum for the moralist.

It is not the mere fact that we survive death that will affect the conduct of individuals and societies, but its place in the organic system of ideas of the body politic. It was not the mere belief in immortality that gave Christianity its efficacy, but its doctrine of limited probation that enabled it to carry out both its ecclesiastical and political policies. But that doctrine of probation would have had no meaning at all without belief in a future life. It is clear that belief in a future life is the best fortification for all the duties which have a relation to an existence beyond the present. If we can organize in association with that belief a stronger sense of human brotherhood it must ultimately influence our political institutions as profoundly as did the fifteen centuries of Christian supremacy, though it may take as long to attain that end. But this time it has scientific method and authority instead of mere faith and opinion to support it. If science can furnish men a creed by which they are to live for some end other than the present life, the reconciliation between science and religion, which has been so long sought, may easily be attained.

I have not appealed to the sentimental value of the belief in anything that I have said of its importance. I have emphasized only the intellectual place which it may bold in supporting or reconstructing the foundations of ethics and moral idealism. Its influence on the griefs and sufferings of mankind is scarcely less great than the influence of medicine, and is capable of being made greater. On that feature of its value I shall not dwell. If the theory of evolution can modify all the maxims which prevented men from modelling their attitude toward their neighbors after the standards of nature, we may well imagine what a defence of humanitarianism may be based upon the proof of survival after death, especially if we find, as we may, that the destiny of every man is affected by the character of his physical life quite as much as by the habits of his soul. It is at least certain that a new measure of human value will come into use if we find nature to be as careful of personality as she is of the elements. The certainty of the survival of personality will put a stop to all those skeptical discussions which postpone the acceptance of ethical standards founded on immortality until the proof of survival is presented. It will give the idealists a chance to reanimate that estimate of life from which spring both poetry and religion, and with these that sense of human relationship which may do more to reconstruct politics than all other intellectual forces.