changing society from above rather than emerging from below, has no affinity with science, whatever personal solace and comfort it may provide, for it assumes that the facts of life, including the material facts of the world, can be compassed within a rigidly prescribed framework. It has taken several centuries of history for the scientific movement to be emancipated from just these cramping human assumptions. The writings of many scientists show, alas, that the emancipation has not yet been completed.
We know very little about what may be called the geography of the invisible world. The religions, if I may continue the metaphor, have covered the vacant spaces of its map with imaginary monsters; the philosophies have ruled them with equally imaginary parallels of latitude. But both have affirmed, in opposition to the so-called practical man, that the meaning of the visible world is to be found in the invisible. That has been the secret of their success. They have failed when they tried either to describe the details of the visible world or to dictate the details of conduct in it. The churches are half empty today because their creeds are full of obsolete science, and their ethical codes are suited to a social Organization far simpler than that of today.
When in the fifth century the Roman Empire fell at the hands of the barbarians, rational medicine ceased altogether in Europe. Although the Christian religion survived, the Christian theology of that time denied liberty of conscience and taught superstitions and dogma. It was bitterly hostile to the scientific spirit. All knowledge
