sense to nonsense, cleanliness to dirt, honor to disgrace, the respect of his fellows to their contempt, and a peaceful mind to one full of scorpions? Do we have to swing into existence fabled and mythical beings and worlds before we can induce a human being to be as natural as a plant and as faithful as a dog? The doctrine of total depravity is a disgrace to those who have invented it, and a blight to those who believe in it. It is not true that we have to be put through acrobatic exercises,—make our reason turn somersaults, resort to sophistry,—become frantic with fear about our future,—postulate the existence of ghosts, Gods, and celestial abodes before we can prefer the good to the bad and the light to darkness. Supernaturalism is both negative and destructive. It denies goodness, and it destroys in man the power of self-help. Von Humboldt's indignation seems pardonable, when he used the word "infamous," to characterize the theologian's attempt to make the well-being of the human race depend upon such supernatural gossip as he had to market.

And what is the verdict of history on this question? Does the belief in God and immortality make for morality? How then shall we explain the dark ages which were ages of faith, and why are not the Moslems, whose faith in Allah and in a future life is very much stronger than ours, a more moral people than the Europeans or Americans? Why was King Leopold, the Christian, a moral leper to the hour of his death, while Socrates, the pagan, who was uncertain about the future, has perfumed the centuries with his virtues? Has the belief in the supernatural prevented the criminal waste of human life, protected the child from the sweat-shop and the factory, or even robbed religion of its sting—the sting whose bite is mortal to tolerance, brotherhood and intellectual honesty? There are excellent people who believe in the supernatural and equally excellent people who ignore the supernatural, from which it would follow that excellence of character is independent of one's speculations about either the eternal past, or the eternal future. It is not true then that we have to prove to man that he has always existed, or that he shall always exist before we can make him see that the sunset is beautiful, or that the sea is vast, or that love is the greatest thing in the world.

A man will be careful of his health whether he expects to live again or not. He will avoid headaches, fevers, colds, anaemia, nervous prostrations and diseases of every kind which rack the body and make life a misery, irrespective of his attitude to the question of survival after death. The question of health, then, which is a very important one, is independent of any supernatural belief. It would not affect our health a particle were the heavens empty or full of gods. In the same way, men will continue the culture of the mind irrespective of theological beliefs. Will a man neglect the pleasures of the mind, despise knowledge and remain content in his ignorance, if he cannot be sure that he is going to live forever? But if neither the culture of the body nor that of the mind is in danger of being neglected, is there any reason to fear that the culture of the affections and the conscience will suffer without a belief in an unseen world? We have only to look into the motives which govern human actions to recover our confidence in the essential soundness of human nature, and in the ability of morality to take care of itself without the help of ghosts and gods. You love your country and you are willing to defend its institutions, if need be, with your life, but is it because your country is immortal? Is America going to live forever? Is it going to have a future existence? And yet Washington and his soldiers loved it dearly and risked their lives for it. Were the ancient Greeks and Romans, to whom patriotism was a religion, and who loved and fought for their country—fools, because they did not first make sure that their country was going to live forever? You are devoted to art, you have built palaces for the treasures of the brush and the chisel. You have paid fabulous prices for the works of a Rembrandt and a Titian. Is it because these paintings are never going to perish? Is the canvas which you adore immortal? You prize the works of genius—of a Shakespeare, a Goethe, a Voltaire, a Darwin. You have edifices of marble and steel in which to house the great books of the world. And yet a fire tomorrow may wipe them out of existence—they may become lost, as many great works have been lost in the past. Nevertheless, are they not precious while we have them? If a humane society will interest itself in the welfare of the horse and the cat and the dog, which live but a few years; if the flower which blooms in the morning and fades in the evening can command our attention and devotion—must a man be a god before we can take any interest in him? Must somebody be always whispering in our ears, "Ye are gods; ye are gods," to prevent us from doing violence to ourselves or to our fellows? And men seek health for the present, not for the future. And they cultivate the mind to make life richer now and here. And love is desired because it makes each passing moment a thrill and an ecstasy. What then is the value of any speculation about the unseen world, since man can care for his body, mind and heart, without venturing out on an ocean for which he has neither the sails nor the compass?

But the unseen world is necessary, the professor seems to think, in order to explain the suffering and the injustice in this. In my opinion, such a belief has done more to postpone the reform of present abuses than anything else. The time to suppress injustice and to relieve human suffering is now, not in some distant future,—here and not in an undiscovered country. The belief in God has tempted man to shirk his responsibilities. He has left many things to be done by God which he should have done himself. It is a nobler religion that tells man to do all he can now, and to do it himself. Moreover, how can what is wrong here be made right in the next world? What, for instance, can make Joan of Arc's atrocious murder—a girl of nineteen, who had saved her country, roasted over a slow fire—right in heaven? What explanation can the Deity give to us which shall reconcile us to so infamous a crime. A million eternities, it seems to me, cannot alter the character of that act. The deed cannot be undone. That frightful page cannot be torn from the book of life. You cannot destroy the memory of that injustice; you cannot rub so foul a stain from the hands of even a God. Suppose God were to say to us in the next world that this crime was necessary to the progress of civilization. Would that satisfy us? Would we not still wish for a God who could have contributed to the progress of civilization without resorting to so unspeakable a murder? And there you are. Another world can never reconcile us to a policy that required the commission of crimes whose stench rises to our nostrils. What is wrong can never be made right.

You remember that to illustrate the thought of Professor James, I spoke of my visit to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where, in the vivisection hall, I saw the physicians operating on live rabbits. Professor James thinks that if the rabbit could see everything, it might say to the physician, "Thy will be done." But the rabbit might also say this: "It is well to advance science and civilization; and if it is a part of the scheme to make me contribute to it by my sufferings, I am resigned; but what about the character of the schemer who must torture to death some of his creatures—slaughter with excruciating pain a portion of his family—in order to make secure the lives of the rest?" The existence of evil in a world created by a perfect God is the rock upon which all religions go to pieces. If God can prevent