There can be no real conflict between the two, for neither, by any possibility, can pass this neutral ground. Before the mind can receive Christianity, or Mahometanism, or any other creed, it must be ready to accept dogmas in the analysis of which human reason is powerless. Among the most brilliant intellects are found Protestants, Romanists, Unitarians, Deists, and Atheists; judging from the experiences of mankind in ages past, creeds and formulas, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, have no inherent power to advance or retard the intellect. Some claim, indeed, that strong doctrinal bias stifles thought, fosters superstition, and fetters the intellect; still religious thought, in some form, is inseparable from the human mind, and it would be very difficult to prove that belief is more debasing than non-belief.
Religion at first is a gross fetichism, which endows
every wonder with a concrete personality. Within
every appearance is a several personal cause, and to
embody this personal cause in some material form is
the first effort of the savage mind. Hence, images are
made in representation of these imaginary supernatural
powers. Man, of necessity, must clothe these supernatural
powers in the elements of some lower form.
The imagination cannot grasp an object or an idea beyond
the realms of human experience. Unheard-of
combinations of character may be made, but the constituent
parts must, at some time and in some form,
have had an existence in order to be conceivable. It
is impossible for the human mind to array in forms of
thought anything wholly and absolutely new. This
state is the farthest remove possible from a recognition
of those universal laws of causation toward which
every department of knowledge is now so rapidly tending.
Gods are made in the likeness of man and beast,
endowed with earthly passions, and a sensual polytheism,
in which blind fate is a prominent element, becomes
the religious ideal. Religious conceptions are
