Idols and Ideals: With an Essay on Christianity (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

Excerpt from Idols and Ideals: With an Essay on Christianity

Macaulay's New Zealander with sketch-book, seeking picturesque ruins!

It is not within the scope of this essay to consider the particular perils pointed out by our prophets of evil. I merely refer to their warnings as illustrative of apprehen sions felt by many in another direction, namely, the effect of religious inquiry on human happiness and character. And I do so because such apprehensions appear to me to rest upon fallacies quite similar to those fears of the results of free inquiry which I propose to consider. The main fallacy is the fear that the same intelligence which has adapted man to his present condition is to remain standing still while everything else changes. Our coal mines, it may be, are gradually to diminish, possibly to fail; but will that intellect which has invented steam engines, and other machinery, lose its power of invention, and for the first time show itself inadequate to meet emergencies as they arise Is the future to have all our problems, and to be without brains of its own? So also in the case of the violent revolution apprehended, when the masses share the scepticism of the educated. Our wode ravens for get, apparently, that such a change as that cannot be an isolated one. Is it an enthusiasm to believe that in the same length of time a thousand other changes will also occur; that, for instance, the masses must acquire some of the calmness and self-control of the cultivated along with their scepticism and also that the social fabric will improve, that the state will become nobler, and all classes possess too much interest in both to handle rashly any real and healthy institution?

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