Dogmatic
Theology, on the contrary, has retarded education and impeded science.
Wherever it has been dominant, civilisation has stood still. Science has
been judged and suppressed by the light of a text or a chapter of
Genesis. Almost every great advance which has been made towards
enlightenment has been achieved in spite of the protest or the anathema
of the Church. Submissive ignorance, absolute or comparative, has been
tacitly fostered as the most desirable condition of the popular mind.
"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven," has been the favourite text of
Doctors of Divinity with a stock of incredible dogmas difficult of
assimilation by the virile mind. Even now, the friction of theological
resistance is a constant waste of intellectual power. The early
enunciation of so pure a system of morality, and one so intelligible to
the simple as well as profound to the wise, was of great value to the
world; but, experience being once systematised and codified, if higher
principles do not constrain us, society may safely be left to see morals
sufficiently observed. It is true that, notwithstanding its fluctuating
rules, morality has hitherto assumed the character of a Divine
institution, but its sway has not, in consequence, been more real than
it must be as the simple result of human wisdom and the outcome of
social experience.
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